Wartime != Peacetime.

Also, what do you mean firebombing our own cities. U.S. "strategic" bombing during Vietnam and WWII was on our enemies, not U.S. citizens as you claim. MKUltra was, sure, but it wasn't millions of people. And who cares about wiretapping; that's not even in the same ballpark. For most people in the U.S., we can live a free, safe, and open life, and so did our parents and grandparents.

One example of how the U.S. is not currently authoritarian is that we're all able to have this exact discussion strongly criticizing the U.S., on a U.S. website, over the U.S. internet, and still no one from the government is going to have us whacked.