[driftdiver]

Stalin would have love this technology as well.

[Reaganite Republican]

I’m sure Putin’s most of the way there already, ESPECIALLY re. the recent Moscow demonstrations...

[Travis McGee]

Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao etc, none of them had any tools as powerful as these. Without exact “targeting” tools, they had to purge many thousands to be sure of getting their potential enemies.

With modern social networks and face recog for targeting “state enemies,” it will be simple for a dictator to decapitate his potential rebels. Find precisely the enemies who are the social nodes and meme makers of the opposition.

The modern purge can be calibrated down to a degree that would make the purge “deniable.” If only the leading meme-makers are targetted, then such means as “accidents” and poisoning could be used. That's why everybody was immediately suspicious about the circumstances of Breitbart’s death.

A gangster govt that has pulled “Fast and Furious” has already crossed the state-sanctioned murder Rubicon. Murder to them is just a tool in the political box...that's what Fast and Furious was about. Getting a (Mexican) body count.

It's a very small jump from there, via a series of deniable cutouts, to some crazed leftists “helping the cause” by offing a well-known conservative. Or even a White House “plumbers” direct-action unit is not out of the question. I would put nothing past this present gang in power.

If Obama is reelected, it will be Katie bar the door, when he goes the full Hugo Chavez, since he can't run for election again and has nothing to lose.