"American Stasi"

Charles Pierce is always a good read, as evidenced by the fact that he wrote the phrase from which I stole the title to this post.

 http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/nypd-spy-on-liberal-groups-7552703

To wit:

I expect we'll be hearing howls of outrage, and anguished cries for Liberty (!) from all the Republican contenders when word gets around that the NYPD apparently woke up one morning and decided it was the American Stasi.I expect we'll hear humble apologies from the people who laughed at the nervous-liberal slippery slope arguments about how unleashing the power of the U.S. intelligence apparatus on American Muslims invariably would result in that power's being loosed generally on people who disagreed with the government itself, and for any reason. I expect the president and his men will condemn this inexcusable abridgement of the Bill of Rights vigorously and vow to make whole its victims to the full extent of the law.

Why a metropolitan police force is sending officers (undercover, no less) to any other metropolitan area for the sole purpose of spying on American citizens is beyond me, but then again I'm still trying to sort the utility of police departments of all sizes routinely employing assault weapons in their day-to-day operations and obtaining armored vehicles to ride around in.