There's that old adage about tyranny being like boiling a frog in a pot of water. You have to turn up the heat slowly or the frog will jump out... and if you ask someone from the bayou they will tell you to cook that frog slow. That is the analogy people in the research community use for tyranny because it doesn't happen all at once and is not as noticeable as storm troopers goosestepping down your street.

Tyranny is a slow and encroaching process that cloaks itself in patriotism to fool the public until it is too late. Just like boiling a frog in a pot, the heat is turned up on the public slowly over a long period of time so very few people notice what is happening.

Who is going to notice a few check points here, a few urban training drills there, and an erosion of civil liberties when they tell us it is for our protection?

There's another old saying, "Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

German citizens in the Wiemar Republic did not understand the tyranny they were living through. Even after the war, when the shocking evidence of the concentration camps was revealed, many Germans could not believe such horrible things happened right under their nose.

When history repeats will we be able to see? Will we be able to lift the veil of national security to see what has been going on under our noses?

My advice to the frog is, "Jump out of the pot while you still can."