We used to have clear guardrails in the U.S. where the government and others could not go. They couldn't decide to use your house for soldier's quarters, they couldn't rifle through your private papers, they couldn't hold you without charges, and so on.

Now there are so many "well, unless you're talking about this other stuff" exceptions that I am unclear: just how much invasion of privacy is enough to ensure the public safety? Random strip searches okay? Maybe we could tap into the cameras and listening devices we've already convinced people to install in their houses. After all, why not? Privacy is dead, right?

My point is that I don't understand where any of this stops, if ever. I am not an unintelligent person, and it looks to me like the world governments are in this to produce absolute security at any cost, hell with consent of the governed. When I grew up, I used to know that the cops couldn't do certain things to you (Well, legally anyway). I have no idea what any of those things are any more.

The country can't function like this. It's not a matter of civil libertarians or any of that. Governments structured like this simply cannot continue to rule over a long period of time. You can dial up the security as high as you want over a generation or two, but long-term it doesn't work. You end up putting the people running the security state in charge of everybody else -- and they're not so stupid they don't eventually figure that out.