More Federal Agencies Are Using Undercover Operations - NYTimes.com: I don't think this is such a good idea. What do you think?

Hummm... first it was revealed that our telephone and electronic communications were being eavesdropped upon by Federal authorities on both sides of our common border. (Thank you Edward Snowden.)   Then came the realization of the de facto militarization of civil police forces such as we witnessed in Missouri in the aftermath of a police shooting (Our sympathies to Ferguson). Now comes an acknowledgement that government intelligence operatives are lurking as part of legitimate social demonstrations in an effort to spy on civilian citizens in their native country...  All in the name of 'keeping us safe'. 



But I've got to wonder....

Did we not say a long time ago that our army and intelligence services could not exercise these same sorts of activities within our own borders since the use of military equipment and armaments or the spying on a civilian population out of recognition that such activities had proven dangerous to the health of a secular democracy in the past? 



This is the reason that legislation such as the War Measures Act or other legislative instruments must be used in times of great crisis or calamity to suspend civil rights.  Shouldn't something of that nature be required before the police exercise the military role of suppressing an indigent population with light tanks and Armored Personnel Carriers,  or intelligence agencies be deployed to snoop into our private communication whether at home or in the public square? If not, why not?

So why are we now allowing government authorities to do those same things within our own borders today seemingly believing it's being done entirely for our own good? What made something that was decried as a great wrong in the wake of the bloody and sometimes deadly civil rights demonstrations and other abuse of government agencies of the Nixon years suddenly such a good idea today? What's changed? 



I'm more than a bit concerned whenever I see a government ceding to itself the right to militarize its civil police departments or to covertly spy on its own citizens with government agents. It doesn't seem like such good idea to me. How about to you? What say you on this issues?