When you're setting up an authoritarian state, one of the first things you do is try to silence dissenters. If/when this will start happening on a large scale in the US I don't know, but there's no denying the ground work has been laid. Easily accessible records of everyone who has privately or publicly expressed anti-government sentiment? Check. A constitution-free zone at the border? Check. Indefinite detention of US citizens without trial? Check. A militarized local police force. Check. A general population that has become desensitized to their loss of liberty like a frog slowly boiled to death. Check.

It's becoming more and more clear that the USG didn't set up all this infrastructure to fight terrorism. Forgive me for assuming the worst. I'm just connecting the dots.