Police State

NSA targets activist groups to shut down political dissent.

"A sinister note is added to the proceeding with a new NSA document entitled "Manhunting Timeline," which describes an international effort to prosecute not only WikiLeaks but potentially anyone who spoke out in Assange’s defense."

That's what secret police do.

"The NSA-GCHQ collaboration is especially useful in that the former was (and is) no doubt deploying the latter to get around the remaining legal obstacles to spying on and otherwise disrupting the legal constitutionally protected activities of American citizens. After all, there is no British version of the Bill of Rights, and, as we have seen, the British government is far less constrained – either by law or the politics of the matter – from engaging in activities modeled on the behavior of the East German Stasi. Indeed, a British court is about to declare Greenwald’s partner, David Miranda, a "terrorist.""

Same with Australia.

"Targeting not only the personnel behind "rogue" websites, but also the users is crossing the Rubicon. If engaged in by the Ukrainian, Russian, or Chinese governments, you’d see Uncle Sam getting up on his high horse denouncing it as a violation of human rights and calling on the offending parties to cease and desist: this would be the signal for the Washington press corps to commence an orgy of tyrant-shaming. "

True.

"All of which brings us a bit closer to showing that the central purpose of the NSA’s activities has zero to do with real terrorism, rationally defined, and everything to do with going after "rogue" actors, such as WikiLeaks and yours truly, who are engaged in what we used to call journalism. They don’t care all that much about, say, al-Qaeda in Syria as they do about Assange’s personal life or what my "real name" is (as they put it in an April 2004 memo)."

Exactly.

Former TSA agent says Americans shouldn't be mad at them because they're just following orders. Where have I heard that before?