Dangerous precedents have been set, eroding American freedom and turning the U.S. into a surveillance state – but it would get much worse if a Tea Party candidate were elected:

The United States is still the freest country in the world. I can write critically of the government and not feel threatened. I can walk down the street and not worry about being stopped by a cop for no reason. But our freedoms are in serious jeopardy. It’s well known that George W. Bush cynically rammed the Patriot Act, among other measures, through Congress with no public debate only a few weeks after 9/11, creating a surveillance state and suspending habeas corpus. But under President Obama’s watch matters have arguably gotten worse, and the new crop of Tea Party presidential candidates, such as Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann, are terrifying.

In spite of insisting during the presidential campaign that we must restore civil liberties, Obama has kept nearly all the worst excesses of Bush’s surveillance state in place, expanding them in some cases. The massive network of privatized spy agencies continues to monitor Americans with no oversight, torture has not been eradicated, as the administration has established torture chambers in Somalia, and Obama has fought to increase government secrecy privileges. Furthermore, Obama has brought more criminal cases against whistleblowers than all previous presidents combined, and his attack on WikiLeaks is particularly ominous in this regard. Read the rest of this entry