Fascism Alert — Corey Robin: Think you have nothing to hide from surveillance? Think again.

The selective invocation and application of criminal prosecutions and penalties is one of the oldest tools of repressive government. (Anyone wanting a refresher should consult Otto Kirchheimer’s classic discussion of “patterns of prosecution” in his Political Justice: The Use of Legal Procedures for Political Ends. As Kirchheimer writes, “Modern administrative practices create infinite ways to become liable to criminal prosecution.”) The sheer sprawl of federal (and don’t forget state and local) law—and the surveillance of men and women that now accompanies that sprawl—only enables this furhter.

Think you have nothing to hide from surveillance? Think again.
Corey Robin

Read in conjunction with Franz Kafka, The Trial; George Orwell, 1984, and the files of Stasi, KGB, and other secret police in fascist and totalitarian regimes along with the secret tribunals and show trials.

For the first time in its history the US as a secret police agency (DHS) that operates with the military, blurring the lines between civilian and military. Moreover, the president has assumed dictatorial powers indistinguishable from other tyrants. due to secrecy. 

This is a very slippery slope for the US to be sliding down. It is undermining American soft power as the "beacon of liberty" and the "shining city on the hill" of purported American exceptionalism as the world discovers that America has feet of clay.