The Snowden-NSA-leaks revealed a world of vast, systemic, institutionalized, industrial-scale Leviathan mass surveillance. A system of surveillance that has gone far beyond the original mandate to deal with terrorism. Following the Nixon-surveillance scandal, Senator Frank Church led an enqiry into the misuse of state power. This resulted in the Church Committee.
In 1975 Frank Church said:
"[The National Security Agency’s] capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide."
Thomas Paine said in 'Dissertation on First Principles of Government' (July 1795):
"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
