" I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America. And we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return"- Sen. Frank Church, referencing the NSA in 1975.
The 2025 movie, 2073, see trailer here:
just got a whole lot more real after watching it again immediately after a front page Wall Street Journal article, 'America's Expanding Domestic Surveillance, May 2-3, p. A1. The basis is simple: the evolution (devolution?) of the U.S. and the world to a total surveillance condition, began decades before. The scifi film, which no longer seems so, traces the beginnings back to the 1990s and then takes off in the 2020s under the tech bros and their ilk - from Palantir, Deloitte, NEC and other spyware specialists.
The tremendous benefit of the film is that it presents graphic segments showing how most humans (not the uber rich) reached the downtrodden, dominated state portrayed finally in the year 2073. With the spokesperson a former librarian or teacher who must hide herself underground given the nature of the books, teachings she has absorbed and isn't about to give up.
So why did the WSJ piece make such an impact: Well one of the first paragraphs is like a punch to the gut:
"The idea of the government watching you is not just the makings of an Orwell novel or a political thriller. The U.S. has greatly expanded its domestic surveillance system, using a high-tech dragnet to locate, track and deport people residing illegally in the country. But the data and location of American citizens is also being collected.
The newly expanded surveillance system allows thousands of federal agents nationwide to peruse a trove of data belonging to more than 300 million people. The government's tracking system relies on an amalgam of public and private information sifted, sorted and packaged by contractors that include Palantir Technologies, Deloitte, Japanese conglomerate NEC and smaller spyware specialists."
We learn further that an array of surveillance tools have been created, including. facial recognition software, location tracking and social media 'scrapers' once aimed largely at suspected terrorists and drug traffickers. In the hands of federal agents (like ICE) any regular citizen can be tracked by entering a name, license plate, or simply taking a photo.
We learn in the piece, that Maine resident Liz McLellan, 48, and four others got the shock of their lives when they were singled out and threatened after observing the work of ICE agents. In the case of McClellan, who followed one ICE vehicle and photographed it, she was shocked when some moments later - on pulling up to her door- she found them waiting for her and delivering a stern warning: 'Be careful because we know where you live.'
Two of the Mainers accused ICE of using their license plates and biometric data to track and intimidate them for exercising their first amendment rights. Well, fourth amendment rights may well be included too, and we know - or ought to remember -it was the Patriot Act which opened the door to a lot of attacks on civil liberties.
To be specific, readers unfamiliar with the act's most notorious sections may want to process the following - before asking how ICE got the power it has:
- Section 206: Allows roving wiretaps - allowing surveillance on any target who frequently changes communications devices (i.e. disposable phones). Search or seizure was permitted without getting a warrant for each device.
- Section 216: Expanded authority to monitor internet traffic, including email, using 'trap and trace' devices.
Much of the Act's overreach only became known after Edward Snowden disclosed them. And which I had warned and blogged about, i.e.
Brane Space: We Must Get the "Patriot Act" Repealed in 2015!
So much of what's going on isn't totally new, although the extent of it is - supported by Trump's yen for autocracy.
Regarding the current transgressions - which are claimed (by Dept. of Homeland Security) to "operate in full accordance with the law" - a former Justice Dept. lawyer is quoted in the WSJ piece thusly:
"The retaliation we've seen against Americans who chose to lawfully record DHS activities should alarm everyone." said Rush Atkinson, who is representing two people in a case. Noting: "This is a fundamental First Amendment right and the public has the right to know why the government is collecting data on those who peacefully protest."
Well, Mr. Atkinson might want to go back to examine certain provisions of the Patriot Act, which was passed in 2001, after the 9/11 attacks. Specifically, how even the Pennsylvania protesters who inveighed against fracking in their state were subject to surveillance, as I wrote in my 2013 post above.
"We are now the enemy, the perceived collective "enemy of the state", and if we don't get this horrific Act repealed or fully rewritten we will pay for it years to come, as the "good Germans" did after the Reich steamrolled all their Weimar democracy liberties to smithereens."
Back to the WSJ surveillance piece we learn:
"Last year DHS paid Palantir $30 million to put a broad span of information about individuals into an app on agents' smartphones, allowing them to plot the location of people in the U.S. The app, known as Enhanced Leads Identification and Targeting for Enforcement or ELITE, lets officers research and track individuals based on criminal history, license plate searches, name, date of birth, or location.
The results display on a map or a list according to ICE agents. The app pulls from a variety of government data bases, including information compiled by private investigators known as 'skip tracers' who track the current addresses of individuals. One ICE agent in court testimony compared it to Google maps - with the targets appearing as 'pins' on the map."
Clearly, if we don't get Trump and his runaway autocrat helpers under control soon, we will all be paying a steep price in loss of liberty. Like the Germans who let Hitler come to power and then impose his 'Enabling Act'. If you want to see how this would play out in the future, watch the film 2073.
See Also:
Letter to America - From Germany:
https://youtu.be/Q-Z6M-LDXWg?si=iAn_Q64zUypuNDHBAnd:Don't Think NSA's Dragnet Spying Program Matters? Ask Occupy Wall Street's Protestors!
And:
And:by Pierre Tristam | May 4, 2026 - 4:43am | permalink
In November 1939 there was that odd poll of Princeton University undergrads–as educated an American student bunch as there was at the time–ranking Hitler “the greatest living person,” ahead of Einstein, who’d taken refuge from Hitler at Princeton, and FDR.
Five years later the New York Times’s Benjamin Fine won a Pulitzer Prize for a series detailing how ignorant of their own nation’s history college freshmen across the country were (the same year Ernie Pyle won a Pulitzer for telling the stories of GIs dying in defense of that ignorance). A large majority of the 7,000 students surveyed couldn’t identify Lincoln, Jefferson, Andrew Jackson or Theodore Roosevelt.
And:
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