14 DAY TRIAL // The US government continues to insist that all the abuses reported over the past few months, based on documents leaked by Edward Snowden, are legal and all done to protect American citizens against terrorists and other threats.
What the US fails to mention is that they were legal because it made sure abusive laws that made its behavior legal were put in place. And if it couldn't get the law on its side, the government simply found ways to completely ignore laws or the constitution.
For example, one way of bypassing the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution, which forbids the government from searching a person's belongings without reasonable suspicion of illegal activity, is to wait until the target leaves the country and then seize everything they carry with them at the border.
In documents released following a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) the US government's sinister methods have been revealed. If an agency wanted to search through a person's computer or other electronics but had no legal reason to do it, it would put that person on a travel alert system.
The system was designed to keep drugs, child abuse imagery, and illegal immigrants from entering the US, and makes it possible for agents to search and detain anyone they want at borders, including on airports.
An agency wanting to take a peek inside someone's computer would put them on the travel alert list and wait for them to pass through a border.
When the US government wanted to intimidate David House, whose only crime was raising funds for the legal defense of whistleblower Chelsea Manning, formerly known as Pfc. Bradley Manning, they used the travel alert system.
His name was put on the list and the government had to wait for months for him to leave the country. Upon return from a vacation in Mexico, his computer, camera, and other electronics were seized.
They were returned to him weeks later, but not before the government made copies of all the data. The government then spent months analyzing it and breaking into the encrypted files.
In essence, the US government can harass any of its citizens at will, illegally searching their belongings and seizing their computers, completely flaunting the laws and the constitution that the government is supposed to uphold. It's quite obvious too that the government will use this against political adversaries and anyone that is a problem to its agenda.
The US is not in danger of becoming a police state; it is a police state where citizens are free to do as they like, as long as they don't do anything that displeases the government or upsets the status quo.