Great Firewall for make glorious U.S. internets!

[Doktor Howl]

that's where the whole 'one crime a week' thing comes in.

Slacker.

[Cain]

Also many European criminal codes do not have expiration dates on them.  Remember, the Code Napoleon is still the basis of much of the Continental legal system, not common law.

[Triple Zero]

Of course, that's assuming they don't find a way to get rid of/get around the statute of limitations. That, and I suppose if they really wanted to get you, they could find a way to shove you into one of the crimes without limitations and/or otherwise get around this. turn you into a "state secret".

Basically if they can't catch you in complete transparency, well there MUST be something terribly secret going on and they kill you in obscurity.

[Prince Glittersnatch III]

So I guess the question here is, why?
Why the sudden shift towards authoritarianism?

Im going to go out on a limb here and guess that muslims with AKs and bombs made from cell phone parts arent a big enough threat to justify this.

So who stands to gain from this?

[Adios]

So I guess the question here is, why?
Why the sudden shift towards authoritarianism?

Im going to go out on a limb here and guess that muslims with AKs and bombs made from cell phone parts arent a big enough threat to justify this.

So who stands to gain from this?

Sudden? What sudden? This has been building for decades. One small step at a time, until they realized small steps are no longer needed.

[Prince Glittersnatch III]

So I guess the question here is, why?
Why the sudden shift towards authoritarianism?

Im going to go out on a limb here and guess that muslims with AKs and bombs made from cell phone parts arent a big enough threat to justify this.

So who stands to gain from this?

Sudden? What sudden? This has been building for decades. One small step at a time, until they realized small steps are no longer needed.

Still doesnt answer my question. Who is doing this and what do they have to gain?

[Don Coyote]

Power

[Doktor Howl]

So I guess the question here is, why?
Why the sudden shift towards authoritarianism?

Im going to go out on a limb here and guess that muslims with AKs and bombs made from cell phone parts arent a big enough threat to justify this.

So who stands to gain from this?

301,000,000 monkeys with bad wiring.  Why do you ask?

[Doktor Howl]

So I guess the question here is, why?
Why the sudden shift towards authoritarianism?

Im going to go out on a limb here and guess that muslims with AKs and bombs made from cell phone parts arent a big enough threat to justify this.

So who stands to gain from this?

Sudden? What sudden? This has been building for decades. One small step at a time, until they realized small steps are no longer needed.

Still doesnt answer my question. Who is doing this and what do they have to gain?

You and everyone you know, and you stand to gain the primate pack identity that you and your fellow primates crave.

[Prince Glittersnatch III]

So I guess the question here is, why?
Why the sudden shift towards authoritarianism?

Im going to go out on a limb here and guess that muslims with AKs and bombs made from cell phone parts arent a big enough threat to justify this.

So who stands to gain from this?

Sudden? What sudden? This has been building for decades. One small step at a time, until they realized small steps are no longer needed.

Still doesnt answer my question. Who is doing this and what do they have to gain?

You and everyone you know, and you stand to gain the primate pack identity that you and your fellow primates crave.

So your saying that its not a shadowy organization guiding us in the direction of authoritarianism but that its some subconscious part of humanity that is leading us towards it?

[BadBeast]

So I guess the question here is, why?
Why the sudden shift towards authoritarianism?

Im going to go out on a limb here and guess that muslims with AKs and bombs made from cell phone parts arent a big enough threat to justify this.

So who stands to gain from this?

Sudden? What sudden? This has been building for decades. One small step at a time, until they realized small steps are no longer needed.

Still doesnt answer my question. Who is doing this and what do they have to gain?

You and everyone you know, and you stand to gain the primate pack identity that you and your fellow primates crave.

So your saying that its not a shadowy organization guiding us in the direction of authoritarianism but that its some subconscious part of humanity that is leading us towards it?

At the end of the day it doesn't matter which. The only thing that matters is to avoid the snares.

[Don Coyote]

So I guess the question here is, why?
Why the sudden shift towards authoritarianism?

Im going to go out on a limb here and guess that muslims with AKs and bombs made from cell phone parts arent a big enough threat to justify this.

So who stands to gain from this?

Sudden? What sudden? This has been building for decades. One small step at a time, until they realized small steps are no longer needed.

Still doesnt answer my question. Who is doing this and what do they have to gain?

You and everyone you know, and you stand to gain the primate pack identity that you and your fellow primates crave.

So your saying that its not a shadowy organization guiding us in the direction of authoritarianism but that its some subconscious part of humanity that is leading us towards it?

Yes.

[Triple Zero]

So I guess the question here is, why?
Why the sudden shift towards authoritarianism?

Im going to go out on a limb here and guess that muslims with AKs and bombs made from cell phone parts arent a big enough threat to justify this.

So who stands to gain from this?

Sudden? What sudden? This has been building for decades. One small step at a time, until they realized small steps are no longer needed.

Still doesnt answer my question. Who is doing this and what do they have to gain?

You and everyone you know, and you stand to gain the primate pack identity that you and your fellow primates crave.

So your saying that its not a shadowy organization guiding us in the direction of authoritarianism but that its some subconscious part of humanity that is leading us towards it?

Yes. It's the Machine.

You can tell by the fact that all the wiretapping and CCTVs and paranoid airport luggage checking aren't really effective for anything or anybody. It doesn't find any more terrorism, it costs loads of money to implement and is a huge economic drag on those (innocent) who it affects most, all the while being pushed for by secret yet headless organisations that nobody (including those in "power") can check or control, going about their business commanded by a feedback loop of echos. And from this, nobody is really profiting, not in money or power. Well, not exactly, there are always those who profit of course, but they too are just along for the ride, not behind the steering wheels on the path to destruction of our privacy.

If you want to know how it ends, watch the movie Cube:

there is no conspiracy
nobody is in charge
big brother is not watching you
it's a headless blunder
operating under the illusion
of a master plan

[Doktor Howl]

So I guess the question here is, why?
Why the sudden shift towards authoritarianism?

Im going to go out on a limb here and guess that muslims with AKs and bombs made from cell phone parts arent a big enough threat to justify this.

So who stands to gain from this?

Sudden? What sudden? This has been building for decades. One small step at a time, until they realized small steps are no longer needed.

Still doesnt answer my question. Who is doing this and what do they have to gain?

You and everyone you know, and you stand to gain the primate pack identity that you and your fellow primates crave.

So your saying that its not a shadowy organization guiding us in the direction of authoritarianism but that its some subconscious part of humanity that is leading us towards it?

Yep.  Tyrants don't just show up with a resume.  They arrive when the people demand them.

[Cain]

A short history of the security industry boom

9/11 happens
People get afraid
Demagogues in the media and government fan the flames of fear for political gain and to increase sales
People get more frightened
It suddenly becomes (more) politically viable to designate billions in designing new airport security tech, surveillance systems, flying killer robots etc
Rinse, wash and repeat.

Now that the War on Terror is a neverending self-feedback loop (US drones carry out attacks in Pakistan, which kill civilians, which create more terrorists, which cause more strikes....), I wouldn't expect this to change anytime soon