[gridmaths]

Great quote ... and we are all kind of susceptible to Battered Person Syndrome, post 911, post Boston.

It takes a concerted effort to resist the feeling we are guilty : our government and military and legal systems are there to protect us.. if I'm noticed and singled out when I cross a border, for criticizing Cheney on twitter, then maybe its me.. maybe I'm out of line.

Maybe the huge embarrassment at having to take my belt off in public at TSA checkpoint was my fault.. after all, I chose to wear a belt that had a metal buckle.. I brought it upon myself.

I think this happened to David Brooks.. I think the state sponsored 'terror' scheme of putting hackers and journalists away for 10 years for acts of conscience.. has been effective in keeping Journalists in line. Speak out and you too could end up rotting in a cell.

[marshray]

I'm not from the Northeastern US, but it seems to me like it might not really be the old 9/11 and Boston traumas. Surveillance and harassment of reporters certainly didn't start then.

For example, in 1971 the Nixon administration broke into leak-conduit reporter Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office in an attempt to obtain medical files with which to publicly discredit him.

Of course, recent administrations have pushed for and obtained laws requiring that all medical records be stored electronically.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg#Fielding_break...

[dkarl]

Daniel Ellsberg turned himself over to the authorities, was released on bail, and saw the charges against him thrown out. Today I imagine he would be held indefinitely in degrading conditions, brutally interrogated, and sentenced to decades in prison if the government ever bothered bringing him to trial.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/09/h...