Legitimate Democratic Dissent or Terrorism?

One of the most worrying aspects of the "war on terror" concerns the abridgement of Constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties. Habeas corpus, that most ancient of rights, has already been destroyed by targeted assissinations and indefinite detentions.

More recently, Department of Defense training material classified street protests as low level terrorist events. The ACLU is suing to have that removed from the training material.

I have read on multiple blog sites about recent approaches to "security" that involve government plants in "dissident groups" in the US. The plants aim to organize protests or actions that can be then used to justify overt actions by "security forces" against the dissident groups. Any group that doesn't agree with the status quo can be labeled "dissident." Here is Paul Craig Roberts account of what is going on:

"One Obama appointee, Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein, advocates that the U.S. government create a cadre of covert agents to infiltrate anti-war groups and groups opposed to U.S.government policies in order to provoke them into actions or statements for which they can be discredited and even arrested."
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts01212010.html

I suggest reading Roberts' essay. Or, more info can be attained here at Alernet
http://www.alternet.org/rights/145229/obama_confidant's_spine-chilling_proposal_to_'cognitively_infiltrate'_conspiracy_theorist_groups?comments=view&cID=1415609&pID=1415550

More generally, I fear that growing resource conflict abroad and more domestic unrest due to unemployment and impoverishment will create ever more repressive "security" strategies and tactics.

Our so-called "democracy" is in serious danger of transforming into something more overtly fascist.