Since you quoted one of my favorite lines from B5, might as well quote the creator of that series on whats going on lately. Basicially the topic of the Nightwatch came up, and people back when the show aired wondered what the possibility was of that happening in modern times. Someone dug that thread back up recently, and here is the quote:

>Do you think the conditions are currently right for martial law? I
>realize that something similar has been discussed to death already on
>this group, but it's not quite the same question, so I hope you'll
>indulge me.

Well, let's see...American citizens (low-lifes, yes, but citizens nonetheless)
detained without questioning or formal charges, military tribunals reviewing
cases in secret without the right of appeal, a proposed system of gathering
everyone's private information for use by the government, tracking checkouts at
public libraries, going through purchases to determine who's taken various
kinds of lessons (including, most recently, suba diving lessons), asking high
schools to turn over addresses for students eligible for military service,
signing an overall action for overseas "hits" on possible targets that does not
specifically exclude American citizens as targets and thus generically includes
them, all but reversing the Freedom of Information Act, a declaration of
wartime emergency that has no clearly defined end-point, moves to weaken or
eliminate the Posse Comitatas act which prohibits the use of military in
domestic situations, the detainment at airports -- under the new terrorist
provisions -- of pepole whose only offense was to take part in protest marches
in Seattle and San Francisco, the loosening of search and seizure laws....

No, not at all, why do you ask?

jms