Florian von Donnersmarck's haunting film The Lives of Others is a warning to us all. It shows how the East German secret police, the Stasi, went about their deadly work of spying on 17 million citizens.
It is a stretch, but not impossible, to see the US President, George Bush, as the new Erich Honecker, the dictator of East Germany from 1971 until the Berlin Wall came down in 1989.
Apart from lying, politicians tend to be overly fond of running other people's lives. There is a wickedly hilarious scene in Keating: The Musical in which the opposition leader, John Howard, clumps up and down the catwalk rasping: "I want powerrr!"
The events of September 11, 2001, gave Bush the excuse to procure absurd legal advice that, as commander-in-chief in a war on a high-order abstraction, terrorism, he has the power to do what he liked with the lives of millions at home and abroad.
Evan Whitton is a columnist for the legal journal, Justinian, in which a version of this article first appeared. He is the author of Serial Liars: How Lawyers Get the Money.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/the-secret-war-on-america/2007/06/22/1182019369217.html