Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. In this sense it is that your union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other.

George Washington, First President of the United States, in his Farewell Address

If these last two weeks have proved anything, it is that our national-security complex (military establishments) have clearly decided that our individual liberties are less important than their need for information. What’s worse, a majority of Americans seem to agree with them.