The Security State Boomerang

Jack sits in his pickup truck adorned with “Don’t Tread On Me” and “Freedom Isn’t Free” stickers, ranting about tyrannical government overreach because the EPA wants to limit factory pollution in his town’s water supply. Later that day, he cheerfully submits to a warrantless phone search at a police checkpoint, voluntarily installs an Amazon Ring camera that shares footage with law enforcement, and votes for politicians who expanded the Patriot Act because “if you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear.” That evening, he posts angry comments about government surveillance after learning the FBI is monitoring militia groups like the one he follows on Facebook.

Remember those cheesy horror movies where the scientist creates a monster to protect his laboratory, only to have it eventually turn on him? That’s essentially the story of America’s security apparatus—except the scientist keeps feeding the monster, apparently believing that somehow it will only devour his enemies.

Core Contradiction

The national security state is perhaps the most perfect example of conservative cognitive dissonance: the same people who warn that government can’t efficiently deliver mail somehow believe it can be trusted with warrantless surveillance powers. They’ll tell you with a straight face that bureaucrats are incompetent paper-pushers who can’t tie their own shoes—right before arguing those same bureaucrats should have unfettered access to your text messages, emails, and browser history.

This contradiction isn’t just amusing—it’s the psychological foundation that allowed the creation of the most extensive surveillance system in human history. The monster grows larger every year, fed by people who simultaneously fear and worship it.

Bill, a small business owner in rural Idaho, posts regularly about government overreach when it comes to taxes and regulations. He stockpiles weapons to protect against potential tyranny while vocally supporting expanded police powers, warrantless surveillance programs, and the suspension of due process for terrorism suspects. When asked about this contradiction, he explains that “real Americans” have nothing to fear from these programs—they only target “the bad guys.”

What Bill doesn’t realize is that the definition of “bad guys” changes with frightening regularity, depending on who controls the levers of power. The surveillance apparatus conservatives enthusiastically built to monitor Muslims, leftists, and environmental activists is perfectly capable of turning its gaze toward militia members, gun enthusiasts, and anti-government conservatives. In fact, it already has.

The Small Government Paradox

Nothing showcases conservative hypocrisy quite like watching “small government” champions enthusiastically expand state power. These are people who will fight to the death against a public option for healthcare because “government overreach,” but who applaud when that same government demands backdoor access to your iPhone.

After 9/11, conservative rhetoric about limiting government vanished faster than evidence of WMDs in Iraq. The Bush administration orchestrated the most massive expansion of federal power in generations through the PATRIOT Act, warrantless wiretapping programs, and the creation of entirely new security bureaucracies. Conservative politicians who normally treated the word “federal” like a profanity suddenly couldn’t expand government fast enough.

The Department of Homeland Security—which sounds like something straight out of a dystopian novel—ballooned into a sprawling behemoth with over 240,000 employees and a budget exceeding $50 billion. All this from the political party that insists government is never the solution.

Remember when Sara from your hometown shared that Facebook post about how government healthcare would put “bureaucrats between you and your doctor”? That’s the same Sara who enthusiastically supported giving those bureaucrats the power to read your emails, track your location, monitor your financial transactions, and collect your phone records—all without a warrant. Apparently, government becomes magically competent and trustworthy when it’s violating your privacy instead of providing you healthcare.

The One-Way Ratchet Effect

Security powers operate like a ratchet—they only move in one direction. Once granted, they virtually never get taken away. That “temporary” security measure implemented after the latest attack? It’ll still be here long after your grandchildren are dead.

Mike, a construction worker from Tennessee, supported the Patriot Act as a necessary “temporary” response to 9/11. Twenty years later, those “emergency” powers are still in place, continuously expanded by both parties. When Edward Snowden revealed the government was collecting everyone’s phone records, Mike was outraged—not at the surveillance, but at Snowden for exposing it. “You can’t let people know what we’re doing to keep them safe,” he explained, apparently untroubled by who “we” referred to in that sentence.

Consider these mechanisms that were supposed to be “temporary” but somehow became permanent fixtures:

• Bulk collection of Americans’ phone records with minimal oversight
• A secret court that approved 99.97% of surveillance requests between 1979-2012
• FBI issuing tens of thousands of warrantless demands for information annually

When Edward Snowden revealed the NSA was collecting Americans’ phone records en masse, conservatives didn’t demand reforms. Instead, they called for Snowden’s head on a pike for the crime of telling American citizens what their government was doing to them.

Senator Lindsey Graham, that paragon of conservative principles, dismissed concerns about government spying by blithely stating: “I don’t think you’re talking to terrorists. I know you’re not. I know I’m not. So we don’t have anything to worry about.” This perfect encapsulation of the “nothing to hide, nothing to fear” fallacy reveals the fundamental naivety behind conservative security thinking: the childlike belief that expanded powers will only ever be used against “bad guys.”

Even after congressional hearings confirmed the extent of surveillance, meaningful reform remained elusive. The USA FREEDOM Act of 2015 was supposed to end bulk collection, but instead just moved the data storage from government servers to telecommunications companies, with the government retaining access. The ratchet clicked forward another notch.

Selective Enforcement Illusion

The conservative security philosophy rests on a comforting delusion: that expanded powers will target only “them”—terrorists, criminals, and those other people who don’t attend the right churches or live in the right neighborhoods. This selective enforcement fantasy allows conservatives to reconcile their fear of government with their enthusiasm for surveillance.

Karen from suburban Dallas sleeps soundly knowing the government has the power to indefinitely detain terrorism suspects without trial. “It keeps us safe,” she explains. Karen cannot imagine these powers ever affecting her family because in her mind, “terrorist” has a very specific appearance that doesn’t include people who look like her husband or son. Her mental image of government overreach remains firmly focused on the IRS auditing her small business, not her son being monitored for his involvement in an anti-government Facebook group.

The Trump administration revealed the absurdity of this belief when it deployed federal forces against Black Lives Matter protesters in Portland. Unidentified federal agents in unmarked vans snatched protesters off the streets—tactics that would have sparked armed conservative uprisings had they been used against anti-mask demonstrators.

The response from conservative “defenders of liberty” was telling: silence or outright approval. Senator Tom Cotton suggested deploying more military forces against American citizens, apparently forgetting his frequent warnings about government tyranny when it comes to environmental regulations.

When BLM protesters were tear-gassed for a presidential photo op, conservatives who had spent years warning about government overreach suddenly discovered their deep respect for law enforcement authority. The message was clear: state violence isn’t tyranny when it’s directed at people you don’t like.

But the thing about government power is that it doesn’t come with a loyalty oath. The tools created to monitor one group eventually monitor everyone, including those who built them. That’s not a prediction—it’s simply how institutional power works.

The Machine Finds New Targets

Government agencies, like sharks, must keep moving forward or die. Once you create a massive surveillance apparatus and staff it with thousands of employees, they don’t just sit around waiting for the perfect terrorist to monitor. They find new targets to justify their budgets.

Jack, who we met earlier, supported fusion centers—intelligence-sharing operations created after 9/11 to coordinate anti-terrorism efforts. He imagined them tracking potential jihadists in distant cities. Then one day, Jack discovered his local fusion center was monitoring his militia group’s social media and categorizing their anti-government rhetoric as potential domestic terrorism. Suddenly, the surveillance state didn’t seem so necessary after all.

These fusion centers quickly expanded their mission to monitoring peaceful protest movements, environmental activists, and yes, eventually militia groups and “sovereign citizens” who typically align with right-wing politics. The machinery of surveillance, once built, finds new targets to justify its budget:

• Occupy Wall Street protesters were monitored through nationwide coordination
• Standing Rock activists faced surveillance through fusion centers and private security
• Eventually, those same systems tracked Oath Keepers, Three Percenters, and other right-wing groups

The expanding definition of “domestic terrorist” should concern anyone interested in political dissent of any stripe. The surveillance authorities conservatives championed to monitor mosques are the same ones now monitoring militia meeting halls.

This isn’t because the people running these programs are uniquely evil. It’s because institutions follow institutional logic. A hammer sees everything as a nail, and a surveillance agency sees everyone as a potential threat. Administrators justify their budgets by finding new dangers to monitor, analysts advance careers by identifying new patterns of concern, and politicians demand results to show the money wasn’t wasted.

Precedent Blindness

Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of security state expansion is precedent blindness—the failure to recognize that powers created to target “enemies” inevitably become tools used against everyone, including supporters of those powers.

Maria, a conservative rancher in Arizona, applauded when the government created the no-fly list after 9/11. “It keeps the terrorists off planes,” she explained. Twenty years later, her son found himself unable to fly home from college after attending a January 6th rally (not the Capitol breach, just the rally). Suddenly, the lack of due process, limited appeals options, and secretive nature of the list became deeply concerning to Maria.

Or take civil asset forfeiture, which allows police to seize property without charging the owner with a crime. Conservatives supported these powers as tools against urban drug dealers, only to watch them become routinely used against ordinary citizens in conservative rural areas:

• The pastor traveling to buy church equipment has his cash seized during a traffic stop
• Family-owned businesses have life savings confiscated for making “suspicious” bank deposits
• Churches find their building funds seized when deposits appear “structured” to avoid reporting requirements

In many counties, sheriffs’ departments now depend on seizures to fund their operations, creating a perverse incentive to find “suspicious” cash or vehicles to confiscate.

The Trump-era FBI investigation into Russian election interference triggered conservative outrage about surveillance abuse—the very same surveillance powers they had enthusiastically expanded. When the security state turned its gaze toward right-wing militia groups and domestic extremism after January 6th, conservatives suddenly discovered their deep concern for civil liberties.

We’ve seen this movie before, and we know how it ends. The tools created to target the marginalized eventually expand to everyone.

Militarized Main Street

The militarization of police forces across America followed a similar trajectory. When urban departments received surplus military equipment, rural conservatives saw only necessary tools for fighting crime in distant cities. When those same armored vehicles and tactical teams began appearing in small towns and rural counties, the disconnect between “law and order” rhetoric and the reality of a hyper-armed state became harder to ignore.

Robert, who lives in a rural county with almost no violent crime, was initially puzzled to see his sheriff’s department acquire an armored personnel carrier through the Pentagon’s 1033 Program. “Seems like overkill,” he thought. Then he watched that same vehicle deploy during a standoff with a local farmer who refused to allow government inspectors on his property. The abstract notion of “militarized police” suddenly became very concrete as the vehicle rolled down Main Street toward his neighbor’s farm.

This dynamic reached its logical endpoint during the Trump administration’s response to the 2020 protests following George Floyd’s murder. Federal agents in unmarked vans snatching protesters off Portland streets represented precisely the kind of state overreach conservatives had long warned about—yet many cheered these tactics when deployed against political opponents.

Small towns across America now find themselves hosting:

• Mine-resistant vehicles designed for war zones
• SWAT teams executing pre-dawn raids for minor drug offenses
• Cell-site simulators intercepting communications of everyone in the area

Conservative voters who cheered when urban police departments received military equipment find themselves increasingly uncomfortable as those same tools appear in their own communities. The weapons they imagined pointed at “those people” in cities now point at their neighbors, their churches, their political meetings.

Red Flags and Red States

Nothing better illustrates the precedent blindness problem than red flag laws, which allow courts to temporarily remove firearms from people deemed dangerous. When these laws targeted primarily urban communities, many conservatives supported them. Florida’s Republican legislature passed a red flag law after the Parkland shooting with strong conservative backing.

Yet as these laws have expanded to rural areas, conservatives have suddenly discovered constitutional concerns. In Colorado, several conservative rural sheriffs declared they wouldn’t enforce the state’s red flag law—apparently believing constitutional rights should apply selectively based on geography and political alignment.

Tom, a gun store owner in rural Colorado, initially supported red flag laws as “common sense measures” after the Parkland shooting. Two years later, he found himself subject to a red flag petition filed by an ex-girlfriend. Suddenly, the limited due process, the guilty-until-proven-innocent structure, and the burden of proving he wasn’t dangerous all became constitutional outrages rather than necessary security measures.

The fantasy that expanded state power will only target “the right people” reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of how institutional power works. Powers granted don’t come with political loyalty tests—they eventually get used wherever institutions perceive threats, including against those who created those powers.

Constitutional Erosion

The greatest danger in security state expansion isn’t just the immediate impact but the long-term erosion of constitutional protections for everyone. Each exception to constitutional rights creates precedent for the next exception, slowly transforming guarantees into suggestions.

Consider how the “border search exception” has expanded over time. Originally allowing customs agents to search travelers entering the country without a warrant, it now:

• Covers anywhere within 100 miles of any border or coastline (where 2/3 of Americans live)
• Allows warrantless searches of electronic devices including phones and laptops
• Permits checkpoint stops and questioning without reasonable suspicion

James, a conservative rancher in Arizona, regularly navigates internal Border Patrol checkpoints where agents can stop and question anyone without reasonable suspicion. He initially supported these measures to “stop illegal immigration” but grows increasingly uncomfortable as agents search vehicles and question citizens with no connection to border crossing. James now realizes he effectively lives in a Constitution-free zone—but the precedents establishing this reality are too entrenched to easily challenge.

The problem with creating constitutional exceptions is that rights, once compromised, rarely recover their former strength. Each exception becomes the foundation for the next expansion, creating an ever-widening gap in protection that eventually swallows the original right entirely.

The Privatized Panopticon

Perhaps most telling is how surveillance capitalists have created private intelligence operations that put the Stasi to shame—yet face minimal conservative opposition because they operate through “free market” mechanisms.

Deborah, a conservative grandmother in Nebraska, regularly posts Facebook warnings about government surveillance. Yet her home contains: an Amazon Echo that records audio, a Ring doorbell that shares footage with police, a smart TV that tracks viewing habits, and a phone that monitors her location continuously. She has voluntarily created a surveillance system in her home far more intrusive than anything the government could legally install—all while warning about the dangers of government spying.

The same conservatives who would storm the Capitol if government agents installed cameras in their homes willingly place Amazon’s Ring devices on their porches and Alexa devices in their bedrooms, creating the most thorough system of voluntary surveillance in human history.

This privatized panopticon—a system where you’re potentially always being watched—operates with even fewer constraints than government surveillance:

• Smart devices create unprecedented domestic monitoring
• Cell providers compile detailed movement histories sold to government agencies
• AI systems analyze patterns to predict future behavior and identify “threats”

When merged with government data through purchase agreements or legal demands, this creates a surveillance capability beyond anything previously possible. The East German Stasi had to rely on human informants; modern surveillance systems automate the entire process.

The Surveillance Paradox

Perhaps the most ironic aspect of conservative security state support is what we might call the surveillance paradox: conservatives most afraid of government tyranny have been most eager to give government the tools for tyranny.

The same people stockpiling weapons to resist hypothetical government oppression vote for expanded surveillance, militarized police, and reduced due process protections—the exact tools that would make resistance impossible. They’re essentially arming themselves while simultaneously giving government night-vision goggles and body armor.

This paradox reveals the fundamental incoherence in conservative security thinking: the belief that government is simultaneously too incompetent to administer healthcare but competent enough to wield extraordinary powers responsibly.

Doug, a militia member in Michigan, spends weekends training for potential conflict with a “tyrannical government.” During the week, he votes for politicians who expand warrantless surveillance, reduce Fourth Amendment protections, and militarize police forces. When asked about this contradiction, Doug explains that these powers will only target “terrorists and criminals”—apparently believing tyranny announces itself clearly rather than arriving incrementally through expanded state power.

The Inevitable Turn

The future arrives with a certain mathematical certainty: expanded security powers will always, eventually, be turned against their creators. When Democrats control federal law enforcement, the expansive authorities granted under Republican administrations remain fully operational, ready to be directed at new targets.

Jerry supported the Patriot Act under Bush but became outraged when the Obama administration used those same surveillance tools. He cheered expanded executive authority under Trump but worried when Biden inherited those powers. Jerry never quite connected these dots, continuing to support security state expansion under “his team” while objecting when the other side wielded the same powers.

The security state follows its own institutional imperatives regardless of which party holds office:

• Programs designed for foreign terrorists now track domestic movements
• Anti-government extremism definitions now encompass far-right militias
• Travel restriction mechanisms apply to new categories of “threats”

The ultimate irony may be that genuine small-government conservatism—with its skepticism of centralized power and defense of individual liberty—should be the natural enemy of the surveillance state. Instead, cultural identity politics and fear of designated outgroups have transformed conservatives into the surveillance state’s most reliable supporters.

The Progressive Strategy

As the security state continues its inexorable expansion, we have a choice: continue abstract criticism of surveillance overreach or explicitly show conservative voters how the monster they’ve fed will eventually come for them too.

The most effective approach combines concrete examples of harm to conservative communities with explicit warnings about future targeting. When conservatives express outrage about hypothetical government gun registries, we should remind them that their gun purchases are already tracked through credit card records accessible without warrants. When they worry about government monitoring of political speech, we should point out that their social media is already being analyzed by the programs they supported.

These aren’t abstract threats—they’re happening right now:

• Rural churches have funds seized through civil asset forfeiture
• Conservative political groups face the same surveillance as liberal ones
• Gun owners find themselves flagged by algorithm-driven threat assessments
• Farmers encounter militarized police over regulatory disputes

By highlighting these concrete examples, we can build cross-ideological coalitions against the security state. This isn’t about scoring political points—it’s about recognizing that a surveillance apparatus that threatens anyone’s liberty ultimately threatens everyone’s.

The security state, like all bureaucratic systems, follows its own institutional logic regardless of which party holds power. The massive apparatus conservatives helped build to monitor “terrorists” and “criminals” inevitably expands its definition of threats to include new targets—including the very people who once cheered its creation.

In the end, the security state is the perfect embodiment of conservative contradiction—the people who fear government most have given it the most dangerous powers, creating a monster that will eventually turn on everyone, including its creators. And when that happens, we’ll need to stand together—left and right—to face the beast we’ve collectively created.