Brin: The Digital Surveillance State: Vast, Secret, and Dangerous

http://www.cato-unbound.org/2010/08/09/glenn-greenwald/the-digital-surveillance-state-vast-secret-and-dangerous/

And as we acquiesce to more and more sacrifices of our privacy to the 
omnipotent Surveillance State, it builds the wall of secrecy behind 
which it operates higher and more impenetrable, which means it 
constantly knows more about the actions of citizens, while citizens 
constantly know less about it. We chirp endlessly about the Congress, 
the White House, the Supreme Court, the Democrats and Republicans, but 
this is the Real U.S. Government: a massive Surveillance State 
functioning in darkness, beyond elections and parties, so secret, vast 
and powerful that it evades the control or knowledge of any one person 
or even any organization.