Speaking of tyranny……

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Little Rock may not be a likely terrorism target or a gang crime hotspot, but the Arkansas capital has decided to follow the example of high-security cities by expanding electronic surveillance of its streets.
A police car with a device that photographs license plates moves through the city and scans the traffic on the streets, relaying the data it collects to a computer for sifting. Police say the surveillance helps identify stolen cars and drivers with outstanding arrest warrants.
It also allows authorities to monitor where average citizens might be at any particular time. That bothers some residents, as well as groups that oppose public intrusions into individual privacy. The groups are becoming more alarmed about license plate tracking as a growing number of police departments acquire the technology.                           source
It’s no business of the police where any “average citizen” may be at any given damn time. Taken together with rampant illegal wiretapping of both email and ‘phone conversations, the use of GPS data from driver’s cellphones to “monitor traffic flows and patterns” and the use of drones we have to accept the fact that the Surveillance State is already here.
Add to those things information sharing across government departments and financial institutions, disclosure rules for financial transactions etc etc etc and one would have to be a blind, dumb optimist to think this is headed anyplace but totalitarianism.