When whistleblower Edward Snowden first came forward three years ago, he described to The Guardian an intelligence system that subverts the power of democratically elected government and runs “outside of the democratic model.” NSA analysts, he warned, have the authority to target anyone at any time, and he feared a less than scrupulous commander-in-chief might someday be in a position to exploit those resources.
Now with the security team being assembled by President-elect Donald Trump, many are anxious at the prospect of a surveillance state under the next administration. The president elect—who has repeatedly expressed admiration for dictators like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un—will have at his disposal the surveillance resources to dig up dirt on political adversaries, journalists critical of his administration, or activists.
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