It's important to remember that we still have a functioning democracy. If you -- Hacker News reader -- decided to run for congress tomorrow, you might not win,

It's important to remember that we still have a functioning democracy. If you -- Hacker News reader -- decided to run for congress tomorrow, you might not win, but you won't be killed, sabotaged, or secretly blocked. Well the IRS may just decide to target you:D The problem isn't so much the collection of the data, it's that checks and balances that are in place are completely opaque to public scrutiny. Everything is classified