Are You In Danger?

[BrooklynRider]

The news is chock full of stories on the curtailment of civil rights, privacy infringements, unlawful arrests, demonization of immigrants and minorities, a military that seems encouraged to be initimidating and brutal, a gutted domestic agenda and severely cut social service budget and, of course, the no-bid contracts awarded to Halliburton / KBR for building and operating American based concentration camps.

Based on the current political climate and your perspective of the direction the country is moving in, do you feel that you, personally, are in danger? This isn't a question of whether you are "concerned," "disappointed," or "against" these actions and items. It is a question of whether you feel that your are in danger of being targeted, harassed, held, incapacitated and/or persecutued if things continue along this path.

Just wondering what the level of concern is on this board.

[Schadenfrau]

If anyone is in danger, we all are.

[ablarc]

If anyone is in danger, we all are.
What does that mean?

[Schadenfrau]

I mean that it's foolish to think that you're somehow exempt from governmental intrusions and restrictions.

[stache]

Anything risque being shut down "for my own protection" (wtf?) Not everyone moves here to raise kids.

[ablarc]

If the government were interested in the likes of us they would have gone after lofter1 long ago. He's certainly a likelier target than Mr. Spice.

[lofter1]

ouch ^^ (but somewhat flattered, too ;) )

[ablarc]

^ You're welcome.

[lofter1]

Each and every citizen is in constant danger of being overwhelmed by those we choose to govern us. The Founders of this great experiment known as the USA understood that -- to some degree. That is why the Constitution was such a radical document. It attempted to insure that no citizen (or at least those individuals who the founders, given the mindset of the time, considered citizens: white male landholders) would be subordinate to the whims of those who governed them.

It is up to the citizens to make sure that the balance remains in favor of the individual citizens -- and does not tip towards those who are chosen to enact the will of the people.

This is not easy. It takes work and vigilance.

I keep meaning to submit a FOIA request to the FBI to see what they've got on me (being of a certain age it's more likely than not that some sort of file was started on me many years ago). But I haven't yet done it. (Partly because I'd be really disappointed to find that the FBI never bothered to consider me worthy of a file!!)

[lofter1]

I keep wondering when the government will tell me I can no longer post from this government-owned PC in my cubicle at the CIA field office?

And why they haven't figured that out yet????

[lofter1]

Ooooops -- I probably shouldn't have revealed that ^^ , eh?

[ZippyTheChimp]

Is it safe yet? I was hiding.

[ryan]

As long as we keep buying stuff I think our personal safety is pretty much... safe. (you know how in the Matrix the human race is used as a battery for the cybor overlords? Like that but with credit cards)

The shifting definitions of "freedom" and "privacy" are troubling, but I feel that I am personally too boring to be of interest to the gov. If I were of Middle-Eastern or Southeast Asian descent I am sure I would feel differently.

[ZippyTheChimp]

6 votes.

I'll set the threat level at Wired New York at BEIGE.