We still take our shoes off and go through metal detectors when Google alone could easily identify the 99.9% of people that lack the remotest possibility of being suicide bombers or airplane hijackers. We adopt and institutionalize dehumanizing and observation technologies because they have at least two inordinately strong addictive qualities: 1) the display of power over the observed, and 2) the pretense of control over an object of fear.

I question if the barricades around our nation’s capital will ever come down but tragically and sadly become an institutional symbol, archetype, of the separation and loss of a free and transparent government of the people — self rule. This article provides a lot to think about and we’d better get started.