“Yes hello, I’m reporting on SS # 432-123-5678 (not a real number) She has been caught going into a house with a bag, I repeat, she’s going into a house with a bag.”

And soon the S.W.A.T. team is swarming some ladies house only to find out that it was some Grandmother with a rather large purse entering her own home. In the purse was a present she bought for her husband for their 70th anniversary. But now it’s too late because they both just had a heart attack and died because the Gov suspected that she was of harm.

The paranoia and fear of domestic terrorism has been played expertly by the intelligence agencies in concert with the White House. They don’t hesitate to use our concerns about foreign, non-democratic governments and organizations to advocate behaviors that make us more like them every day.

Secrecy is a potent tool that should be used sparingly and with efficient safeguards in place to prevent its abuse. We have no choice but to trust our representatives to act in secret in ways that uphold and abide by our Constitution. I don’t think our trust is being honored in this current atmosphere of paranoia over terrorism. If we refuse to hold the government accountable for its actions, even those taken in secret, then we have no one else to blame when our liberties are restricted and eliminated in the name of greater security.