Update to US as totalitarian society

Yesterday I blogged about the glider pilot who was put in jail for acting legally—indeed, there was serious discussion of shooting him down to kill him. I just updated the post with this:

UPDATE: I should point out that the aggressive (and to my mind, egregious) actions of DHS and the FBI are perfectly legal—indeed, they could have locked the pilot up indefinitely in a prison (a secret prison, if they chose) with no access to lawyers or due process. That’s allowable if they suspect him of terrorist inclinations, thanks to the PATRIOT Act, which the Senate recently continued with no discussion at all. In fact, it would be perfectly legal for Obama to have him killed on suspicion (a “signature strike”). Once dead, since he’s an adult male, the Obama administration would identify him as a militant: any adult male killed in a drone strike is ipso facto a militant—this is explicitly in accordance with the doctrine of the Obama Administration. When I say “perfectly legal”, I mean that Obama does it and it cannot be considered in court (just as the US kidnappings and torture of innocent people cannot be considered in court), because the Obama Administration uses the state-secrets loophole to keep these things out of court: no recourse for injured parties.