Authoritarianism is the historical norm in every human civilization. In fact America is one of the only examples of an empire that has been democratically governed since its inception. America is also a rare example of a revolution being followed by a lasting, multi-generational democracy (and that was a close call -- remember that our first president was the commander of the army that fought for revolution); the typical pattern is for some military leader to refuse to give up power after a successful revolution, or if a democracy is established it will usually end quickly after it is challenged by some crisis. Examples are plentiful and can be found in the histories of every region of human habitation on this planet, and it is a fantastic example of a phenomenon that seems to transcend things like technological development, culture, religion, and so forth.

Remember that for a democracy to work people have to be active participants, and most people have other things to worry about in their lives. Democracies tend to erode over time; every crisis will lead to a bit of erosion of a democracy, and if the democracy is not reinforced following the crisis, it will be eroded even further during the next crisis. The decline of the Republican system of Rome is an interesting case study -- crisis after crisis weakened the democratic institutions until Caesar struck the final blow.

Because the people have become pacified and complacent and allow it to happen. They're "protecting" us, after all, so it's all good, man. There is a relatively small percentage of people who understand and care, and most are on places like HN. To the rest, it's just more noise in the ether to filter out. "Nothing I can do. Hey look, a cute cat pic."

The name of the game is distraction, and to pump so much contrary and competing information at everyone that no one can discern the truth from fiction. It's happening. Now.

From another great HN discussion today, watch this (HyperNormalization by Adam Curtis): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh2cDKyFdyU

We get what we deserve.

They have nothing better to do. I mean that seriously.

We're generally safe, but all the security organizations need to do something to justify themselves, and have ways of thinking that always pursues "greater security" as a direction even if it overshoots what is reasonable for free people.

When security begins to impede freedom, the mandate of security must be placed below the mandate for freedom. Security is there to protect freedom as its ideological basis, so this is an obvious prioritization.

One fundamental struggle between a government and its citizens is that it is believed the more control of/visibility into citizens' lives it has, the more effective it can be at its goals. (I'm not going into whether I think this is actually true.)

Given that, there's the continual struggle between people not wanting government interference in their lives, but wanting the government to be able to accomplish some goals - people ~universally dislike taxation, but many of us think the government should be permitted to levy taxes to fund itself and programs we would like to see.

When people are uncertain or afraid, they will often make more emotional rather than purely rational decisions about clinging to solutions which purport to offer a way back to safety, even if they don't see or understand how their plan provides that.

And once people have gotten themselves into a belief system which they did not reason their way into, they are far more likely to double down if you attempt to reason them out of it.

Authoritarian measures are the political equivalent of "if you sign here, I promise to do whatever it takes to make [bad thing] stop bothering you", nevermind that "whatever it takes" is something you would never have agreed to otherwise, and probably wouldn't have agreed to before your first emotionally-fraught decision. Government agencies have incentives to favor them, because they believe the authority to do X (especially if they're given a blank check and can fill in Y,Z, and W as additional things) will let them accomplish something more readily.

It’s always been this way. It’s always easier for governments to do x, y, z if they have more control over their citizens; it’s our job to make sure that there is a balance between losses of certain freedoms and the benefits that we can get by losing those liberties.

> Why are governments bringing in authoritarian measures all the time?

Because we collectively ask them to. You can't ask them to do a bunch of things you might not consider authoritarian (though others might) and then be surprised when they finally reach your definition of authoritarian. That differing levels of "authoritarian" exists is important to remember when you cheer on extreme government oversight/invasiveness just because you agree with the cause at that time. It's hard to know you've given them a mandate until it's too late. You should disagree with unnecessary government intervention even if you agree w/ the intent, and only accept it as a measure of last resort instead of the increasingly default solution many look towards these days.

Increased airport security allows nation states to defend themselves better from situations they create.

e.g. the u.s. impinges on countries around the globe. we could never survive the blowback without strong border security.

as partwise beneficiaries of the booty, we Americans are expected to endure the dangers of releasing our biometry.

to answer your question, the u.s. used to be the oppressed... england left us well-enough alone when we rose up, and we were growing internally, not bombing six countries at once, like we are now. so no one hated us enough and we had little hate for immigrants- we wanted them to help us grow. but then WW2 happened and we sold our souls to Saudi Arabia for oil the grow. And simultaneously, the military industrial complex happened. thats how its been for three generations now and hardly anyone wants to pull out.

yes there were many other terror operations between 1800 and 1940, but their side effects, without widespread media, couldn't be leveraged to stymy the citizenry.

Because they can get away with it and it gives them more power to exploit. They are maintaining damned wish lists of bills for 'convenient events'. The only reason they stop is fear that they'll be lynched metaphorically or otherwise for their actions.

Follow the money. Somebody in power is getting backhanders or has a cushy job lined up at one of the tech suppliers. The US government is one of the most corrupt in the western world.

On a micro level, it could always be little better or worse than it is, more or less authoritarian, we can debate the details of the moment ad nauseum.

On a macro level, the global population keeps growing ~exponentially on a finite planet. This inevitably results in loss of freedoms/liberty. You can see symptoms of this everywhere.

people are afraid of any risk in their life and the mobility and ability of those who can harm people either singularly or in groups has never been greater. however the sheer number of people there are means your individual chances are pretty low but it only takes a few high profile cases to scare people.

plus politicians gain power this way by making you fear the other guy. when they cannot find a way to make you not like or trust your neighbor then they drop back to people "over there".

still most would trade a lot of freedom if they don't have to think about their own safety and that is only going to get worse as schools ensure children look to their government for that protection

Another angle is where the initial push for these new programs is coming from.