"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon."<p>I think this article shows an interesting and very disturbing phenomenon that would be considered impossible before 2001. It all depends on what you consider "new". Often in politics, 10 years is a very short time for something this magnitude to happen.<p>I find it rather disturbing because far too many pieces of a dystopian police state are in place. Again, in a country I would deem it impossible just 10 years ago.<p>We need more civil-rights lawyers and we need them fast. And not only in the US.