Comment taken from Slashdot

Source: http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/07/02/20/0045227.shtml

The art of repressive politics - overall - is keeping the level of abuse down to just under that point where the populace will turn on you. Both the UK and the USA have been riding ever closer to that line, yet artfully avoiding crossing it. Modern polling techniques added to modern disinformation techniques have produced a society that is passive in the face of massive levels of rights loss, coercion, and general interference; modern comforts leave citizens ever more unwilling to take the risk of sacrificing all for what to most of them is just an abstract.

As long as this balance in maintained, there are only two choices for the disaffected; push the rest of the populace over the line (which puts you in the same position as the government - the populace didn't want to go there in the first place so you are engaged in coercion) or act on your own if you can find an effective vector. This, of course, is extremely risky, as the natural corollary for the government's getting out of hand in the above-described ways is an increased level of activity against the disaffected.

Currently, the levers that crack open the door to dictatorship are labeled "terrorism" and "think of the children." These two factors, artfully applied, have demonstrated the power to make the UK and USA populations give up anything, put up with anything, pay anything, without upsetting anyone but the highest functioning individuals who have made rights and freedom their concern. And this is far too small a demographic to result in an effective counter reaction. Until or unless you can defuse the power of these two control vectors to manipulate the general population, and keep replacement and enhancement vectors from taking their place (oh god, we have to control carbon output) it is my opinion that the governments of both countries will continue to increase pressure on the populace in the areas of rights loss, coercion, and general interference. The benefits are power, as you noted, and financial gains for those who control the system. These are not elements that can be replaced for the power hungry; you can offer no substitute, you can only remove them, and that, of course, will provoke a severe reaction.