244. Permanent record or, rather, permanent damage

I’m reading Edward Snowden’s ‘Permanent Record’, his autobiographical account of the experiences that led him to exposing the Intelligence Community’s security abuses in the US in the aftermath of 9/11, only partially mitigated lately by a few court rulings and policy changes that may likely be only partially stemming the tide. I’m not even halfway through, but in his account, Snowden states how that date is ground zero in the evolution of the US from a liberal democracy to a security state. I don’t know the US well enough to have a founded opinion on this statement, and I certainly did not know it well enough before 2001. However, if he is right, then it could be argued that the War on Terror was a US defeat in a war in which its declared foe, Al Qaeda, succeeded at destroying what they loath most, liberal democracy. But it does not have to be that way. Security and democracy are not necessary antagonists. With the initial shock overcome, they can be reconciled, and victory reclaimed 

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