News On The March

In Police State News of the Day:

Tasering innocent diabetics and heart disease patients is fun and all, but the real rush for cops is on the way. The full story is at TPM Muckraker

The Miami-Dade Police Department could soon become the first police department in the country to employ unmanned drones, a technology that until now has been used for official purposes only in war zones and along the country's border.

 And have you heard of Darpa Tiap? No it's not the name of a Bollywood celebrity, it is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Total Information Awareness project. And though it may seem beyond the frontier of Orwellian conspiracy ravings, many elements for control of the meek citizenry are already functional. Elliot Cohen tells all in a Truthout interview.

Basically what I'm saying is that there's evidence for thinking that we're moving in a direction of a controlled society, a controlled culture. It isn't that we're one hundred percent there, but there are dangerous trends, and if we don't do anything to offset them, then we really will be in some serious trouble.

The problem with the public is that they're willing to take an extra step. First it's taking off your shoes and putting your stuff through scanners: "That makes sense, all right, we'll do that." Then it becomes more intrusive, and they'll say, "Okay, we'll do that." So you don't get to the end of this continuum immediately; you take gradual steps, and the problem is that with each gradual step, you don't realize how far you've gone down that road. But at some point, people are likely to turn around, and maybe not even realize it - it might just seem part of life. And the idea of freedom might still be discussed as though it exists - however, it won't.