It can't happen here, there's no place like home ...

Laura Rozen:

Perhaps this is the whole point of the Bush administration invasion of Americans' privacy through things like demanding Google, Yahoo, AOL, etc. turn over *all* search records, monitoring phone calls without warrants, etc. Not to root out illegal activity. After all, they didn't make such a big effort with Osama bin Laden, who's still out there, and from what I hear, some of the more pornographic problems the Justice Department might worry about should be focused on certain Republican members of Congress and the entertainment they enjoyed paid for by certain lobbyists - entertainment which might be construed as bribery by other means. No, it's not aimed at stopping illegal behavior, of which there seems to be no shortage to be found in the serving and, shall one say, being served ranks of the GOP. No, it's to make ordinary Americans who are not breaking the law feel like they're being watched, so they curtail their normal behavior, so they are less political, less inquisitive, less vocal, less active, so they feel less free. Typical feature of the surveillance state.

It is possible for a combination of massive corruption in government and media along with misuse of intelligence agencies to destroy the substance of democracy while maintaining the form. See How to steal a democracy: In Peru, bribes were bigger for media barons than for judges by John McMillan and Pablo Zoido San Francisco Chronicle 01/22/06.

Now, I don't mean that to be any kind of analogy or warning or something for the US. Because it can't happen here, it can't happen here, there's no place like home, there's no place like home, it can't happen here ...