Factionalism and fury are basic ingredients of the US Republic. Designed as a classic response to the lynch mob fantasy of direct democracy, and the weakness of unaccountable monarchy, those behind the US constitution contrived a select form of paternal snobbery: letting groups fight it out in the amphitheatre of politics. Such a battle would always adhere to certain demarcations of power along the separation of powers.
This was all well and good, bar one fundamental problem. The State blossomed and ballooned. Bureaucracy became both purpose and fetish, despite being opposed in a rhetorical way by various presidential administrations and politicians. While US politicians – at least a good number of them – feared the growth of the unelected classes within the US government system, the empire’s appetite proved voracious.
Supply met demand. Functionaries were hired; modern foot soldiers were sought for the task of building empire in freedom’s glades. The National Security Agency, child of a new, post-World War empire, grew up alongside the Central Intelligence Agency. A vast intelligence community mushroomed in the dark rhetoric of Cold War doom and nuclear fears.
What, then, of that elusive quantity known as the people? Where would they fit in the administrative schemes of such behemoths? History shows them as subjects to be spied upon and suspected. The security rationale became the necessary shibboleth. Despite various imposed restrictions,…