I travel by ferry to the San Francisco financial district. After the recent London bombings, commuter boats on the Bay are now escorted by small police or coast guard vessels, Zodiacs sporting gigantic guns. You must walk through police presence at either end, sometimes with a cruiser prominently parked on the pedestrian walkway or the dock. Men in uniforms keeping the people safe and secure.

What, exactly, are these keepers of safety going to do in a crisis? A sleeper terrorist would have been riding this ferry for years, waiting for activation. They would walk on with a bomb in a briefcase while smiling hello to the crew. These men with big guns will simply be blown up along with the rest of us.

It's the illusion of safety for a populace in fear.

Here's a short list for you: searches without warrant, photography in public places prohibited, illegal public protests, rigged and rehearsed "town hall" political events, opposition groups branded traitors and terrorist sympathizers, limitless detainment and torture of "non-enemy combatants", scrubbed media unable to display coffins of returning dead, rising nationalism inflamed by the government itself, a political rhetoric devoid of actual meaning except the creation of fear and "moral" distraction while money flies from already empty public coffers into the accounts of businesses affiliated with the leaders.

China? USSR? Wake up, America.

This is not the path to safety or freedom. We're being used.