Terrorism is just the threat. The nebulous conceptual threat - in the same way the US thought declaring war on psychoactive recreational plants was a sane proclamation, declaring war on the fundamental idea of violent political dissonance through fear is also equally untenable but also equally effective in placating the population through fear of the "other" / "sin" just by the simple animal brain logic of different == dangerous == threat == destroy.
You don't want to finely define your threat when you want the threat to be perpetual to justify your seizure of power. Is it sad that this is literally what the awful Star Wars Prequel's did? The evil sith lord orchestrated vacuous foes for the much larger, much stronger Republic to fear, and then used that fear to see himself given absolute power so as to seize total control of everything once the curtain was pulled back and he was revealed the ultimate puppet master.
In much the same way, terrorism in the modern world is constructed with American arms and money, to create the strife that funds private defense contractors and military arms manufacturer's profit margins. It is a fabrication to instill fear, to enable the expansion of authority in exactly the same way - and everyone agrees those movies were terribly written because the Emperor's plot seemed so impossible with so many people around him to see it, yet we are living it out ourselves in much the same way today - and the super majority of people are entirely ignorant, or even protective, of the fear-mongering.
I think declaring war against pot fit nicely into the puritanical history of America, and a few crazy controlling people like j edger hoover. We do seem to let those types get into power. Hopefully it won't happen with Trump. I would believe that some of those types of people would try things like that to control people.
But I think there's a lot larger group of conservative law enforcement and politicians that just go along with those restrictions.
Now I have even seen some republicans coming out against this national surveillance as they think about what it would be like if trump had access to that, instead of "their guy".
It will be hard to reverse the national surveillance state. The first step is contacting your representatives and reminding them of your objection.
You don't want to finely define your threat when you want the threat to be perpetual to justify your seizure of power. Is it sad that this is literally what the awful Star Wars Prequel's did? The evil sith lord orchestrated vacuous foes for the much larger, much stronger Republic to fear, and then used that fear to see himself given absolute power so as to seize total control of everything once the curtain was pulled back and he was revealed the ultimate puppet master.
In much the same way, terrorism in the modern world is constructed with American arms and money, to create the strife that funds private defense contractors and military arms manufacturer's profit margins. It is a fabrication to instill fear, to enable the expansion of authority in exactly the same way - and everyone agrees those movies were terribly written because the Emperor's plot seemed so impossible with so many people around him to see it, yet we are living it out ourselves in much the same way today - and the super majority of people are entirely ignorant, or even protective, of the fear-mongering.