10 Things Americans Underestimate About Our Massive Surveillance State

June 7, 2013  |  Americans may be upset about the latest revelations in the government’s ability to spy on citizens via their online lives, but no one should be surprised. We've underestimated and overlooked many key aspects of the government’s ability to track our lives for years.

 

The bottom line, which resonates most strongly among civil liberties advocates on the left and conservative libertarians on the right, is not just the loss of privacy but also the growing power of the state to target and oppress people who it judges to be critics and enemies. That list doesn’t just include foreign terrorists of the al-Qaeda mold, or even the Chinese government that has stolen [3] the most advanced U.S. weapon plans; it also includes domestic whistleblowers, protesters and journalists—all of whom have been targeted [4] by the Obama administration Justice Department.

 

Let’s go through 10 points about these latest revelations of domestic spying to better understand what Americans have underestimated and overlooked about electronic eavesdropping.