Not... abusing... Huh?

Off the top of my head: Communist registration, mail censorship, Japanese internment, McCarthy, Nixon, J. Edgar Hoover and/or COINTELPRO, warrantless wiretapping, PATRIOT Act, Guantanamo Bay, the current crusade against whistleblowers. These are just some of the biggies I'm familiar with.

I've never seen any evidence that the US government as a whole cares about rights until the courts and people MAKE them, and I've seen plenty of politicians and law enforcement officers sounding off in the press about how some big new threat necessitates the completely unconstitutional and usually unethical and immoral conduct they are about to engage in.