Opinion: What Is Happening to America?

America is moving down a very dark path. In the past 10 years, more civil liberties have been taken away from the American people than ever before---liberties that were guaranteed under the Constitution.
By giving the military the right to arrest any American citizens suspected of terrorism and to hold them indefinitely and without trial, it seems the ethic is to stifle dissent before the American people join the rest of the world in protest. If we add on to this the fact that the government has been recording and storing every piece of cell phone and computer data from Americans since September 11, 2001, then we must question the intentions of the powers that be. These are bold claims to make, but the evidence is plentiful.
The National Security Administration was created to collect and analyze foreign intelligence and communications, which it did until right after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. According to a story that appeared in Wired magazine in March, 2012, a handful of the National Security Administration's top cryptologists who turned whistleblowers, --specifically William Binney, --claim the directive of the NSA began at that time to spy on American citizens without warrants, a program code named "Stellar Wind."
Stellar Wind collects and stores each piece of data every American puts into cell phones, emails, bank accounts, computers, and any other electronic-based data source. The NSA is currently building the country's biggest data storage facility in Bluffdale, Utah. This program is separate from foreign spying and is against what Mr. Binney stood for throughout his long career, which led him to reveal the information.
In a piece published by the New York Times, Binney says, "The NSA's charter was to do foreign intelligence, and I was with that all the way and I did the best I could in that job. Unfortunately, they took those programs I built and turned them on the American people."
While this is scary enough, it gets worse. On December 31, 2011, the President of the United States signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), with language that, according to some legal scholars, allows the military to indefinitely detain any American citizen suspected of terrorist activities without trial, without displaying any shred of evidence. However, a court has ruled that the bill violates the Constitutional right to Habeas Corpus, which guarantees a court's determination as to whether a citizen should be arrested, and Fourth Amendment rights protecting individuals against unreasonable searches, both domestically and abroad.
When President Obama signed the bill into law, he said that he wouldn't use the section that allowed for the detainment of American citizens. However, when a group of journalists was able to get an injunction overturning the bill by a State judge, the President's lawyers immediately fought it in court. A few weeks ago, a federal judge reinstated the bill, making it legal to detain American citizens indefinitely and without a trial. So be careful if you decide to protest; you may be locked up forever.
These are only a few of the pieces of evidence that lead me to believe that America is turning into a police state. All of these policies have been created under the guise of the constant threat of terrorism.
It was Benjamin Franklin who said, "Those who are willing to give up a little freedom for a little security wind up with neither freedom, nor security." The course America is taking is not a good one. Nothing good will come from taking away freedom. For example, there have been more protests in foreign countries against oppressive governments in the past five years than ever before.
With the policies of removing basic civil rights that the American government is putting in place, one can only wonder how long it will be before the people say enough is enough and stand up for their rights.