The scary part is that they're developing capabilities and organizing in such a way that they will be able to stop dissidents and protests before they even go out to protest, thanks to the NSA mass spying and the so called "fusion centers" with the DHS and police. They were already used against Occupy protests. At the next protest they will be much more organized and have much better capabilities to track who intends to go to protests or even who's "inciting" protests online.
Think that case with the German who said on Facebook that they should visit the new NSA center in Germany, and the police visited him before he got a chance to do it. That's what we're really talking about here. If you think that developing such capabilities to stop protests is a little too paranoid for you to digest, do you really think they wouldn't do this if there was another massive protest against the banks, with the excuse that they're protecting the nation against an economic crash or whatever? The last time around, they arrested people for trying to close their bank accounts, and they weren't even that many. Let's just say that if this was an Intrade bet, I would be in favor of it happening.
This is the scary truth. I am familiar with aspects of an intelligence project that has as it's duty not just an internet archive, but a sweeping back-tracker to identify the source and time-start of rumors or repeated phrases and memes. I suspect it has access to all email and IM in addition to a simple web-crawler.
The architects are liberal ex-hippies who just do not understand that they are building the framework for totalitarianism. I think there are a lot of us who just like playing with toys and do not evaluate the ethical ramifications of their actions.
I never understood people who said that the internet was a way to reduce the abuse of power by governments or corporations. They are good at wielding power, and many of them don't have any trouble adapting to the internet. They may be a few years late to the party, but the internet gives them the same power as it gives everyone else, and they have a head start on power.
You don't have to share the worldview (or drink the internet koolaid) to track everyone, search all the public data people post about themselves, mine location data attached to images, hire sockpuppets to promote yourself or smear your enemies, etc.
Think that case with the German who said on Facebook that they should visit the new NSA center in Germany, and the police visited him before he got a chance to do it. That's what we're really talking about here. If you think that developing such capabilities to stop protests is a little too paranoid for you to digest, do you really think they wouldn't do this if there was another massive protest against the banks, with the excuse that they're protecting the nation against an economic crash or whatever? The last time around, they arrested people for trying to close their bank accounts, and they weren't even that many. Let's just say that if this was an Intrade bet, I would be in favor of it happening.