[Zak]

I'm not sure it's ridiculous to suggest that failing to stop law the misuse of law enforcement tools to harass dissidents early invites worse oppression later. These things have a way of ratcheting up until they get significant push back.

[gph]

Maybe. Seems like the FBI and federal agencies were harassing dissidents a lot worse in the 60s and 70s through COINTELPRO than they are now. I don't know if it's really worse now so much as different with new avenues of harassment into our digital lives. You think dissidents weren't harassed at the border before everyone carried a cell phone?

The post I was replying to was basically a vague reference to creeping fascism/nazism, and then implying that the same is happening in the US and that we're on the brink of descending into nazism. It's stupid sophomoric comparison to make.

Yea we should fight back against this type of legal harassment. Sure it's similar to how nazis once operated. But what does that comparison really provide in this situation other than throwing FUD onto it. Do you really think the US is about to rise into the Fourth Reich? I mean seriously... even if you feel like Trump is the antichrist, this policy undoubtedly came into effect during the Bush/Obama years when laptops and cell phones became ubiquitous.

[dsfyu404ed]

I think a lot of it is that there's so much more digital paper trail and so much more stuff is done electronically nowadays you can't as easily stop being a thorn in their side (i.e activist for some cause) without them continuing to treat you like one.

In the 1960s you could decide that you'd done enough and move to a new city across the country and get a fairly fresh start. Now any trivial interaction with "the system" would get you red flagged at every subsequent interaction.

The cops "randomly" stop an acquaintance of mine fairly regularly and give him much more crap ever since one of his kids got a misdemeanor speeding ticket (threshold is 20-over which is typical traffic speed in some places) in that vehicle with those plates.

>think the US is about to rise into the Fourth Reich?

Not literally but people have diverse sets of political beliefs. It's not a stretch to imagine individual groups that are for/against something being persecuted. Imagine how civil rights activists or the pro-socialist hippies would be treated today.

[anon2264]

Are you able to provide sources for the position you put forth about similar US harassment of political dissidents decades ago?

Obama prosecuted more journalists and whistle blowers than any president in history.

And we're not talking about turning into Nazi Germany. We're talking about why government crimes against their own people, especially for political speech, should never be allowed to happen because they can result in worse outcomes than you would expect.

[type0]

> And we're not talking about turning into Nazi Germany. We're talking about why government crimes against their own people, especially for political speech, should never be allowed to happen because they can result in worse outcomes than you would expect.

And Germany didn't turn up Nazi overnight. It's always a slippery slope to prosecute people for political purposes. What happens in Canada with it misuse of human rights tribunal and what happens in many other western countries where the social climate currently is that everyone considers to be okay to suppress free speech because someones feelings are hurt. It is not a human right to be able to silence uncomfortable opinions, yet it is exactly what we see in these phenomenon of social justice warriors only there is no justice there to be made. This entitlement and the need to control of others is actually what scares me the most. You see it everywhere, people in uniforms and people in academia specially social sciences.

[gph]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO

Read history outside of school, might learn a thing or two.