"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, first Baron Acton (1834–1902), written in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887.

Author George Orwell may only have been off by a mere 29 years in titling his book "1984." Recent revelations show the leaders of this once Democratic Republic have crossed the line pushing this country toward dystopia.

Consider, for example, the IRS' heavy-handed handling of conservative and religious groups' requests for nonprofit status, and the National Security Agency's data mining of every American's email, telephone calls and credit card information, not to mention the Department of Justice's peeking into the private emails of Fox reporter James Rosen and his parents' phone calls.

On Sunday, Britain's Guardian newspaper released the name of the individual, Edward Snowden, 29, as the person who provided information on the National Security Agency's massive surveillance of all U.S. citizens.

Snowden says he is a former technical assistant for the CIA who has been working for various contractors at the NSA.

On June 5, the Guardian disclosed a secret order from a U.S. intelligence court (FISA, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court) requiring Verizon Business Network Services to give telephone records specifying time, location and telephone numbers involved in all domestic calls April 25 to July 19.

The next day, both the Washington Post and the Guardian wrote about PRISM, the program permitting NSA analysts to gather "audio and video chats, photographs, emails, documents" and other materials – from nine computer companies including Microsoft, Google, Apple and others.

When IRS representatives can demand various groups reveal what they say in their prayers, under penalty of perjury, while at the same time spending millions of taxpayer dollars on a "Star Trek" parody for a conference, the fall into autocracy is nearing completion.

The novel "1984" prophesized a land where the eyes of the government were everywhere and words actually meant the direct opposite.

Peace meant war. Truth were the lies and propaganda told by the government.

The political policies of America's elite upper class has led to 47 million people, 15 percent of the population, receiving food stamps and, according to U.S. Department of Labor Statistics, an unemployment rate of 7.6 percent, signifying 11.8 million former workers.

Orwell's unemployed "Proles," unfortunately, are on the rise across what used to be a country of plenty.

Having the power to listen to the phone calls of a journalist's parents; the power to view personal photos emailed from friend to friend, all without probable cause and due process, is the power of a government that can easily abuse its citizens.

If you think it cannot happen to you, you are wrong.

Cross the wrong person or government agency and an innocent email can be made to seem conspiratorial and dangerous.

America needs to remain safe from those who want to do us harm but unrestrained access into the lives of every citizen is not the way to do it.

Deb Palmieri

editor

Parkland Press

Northwestern Press