The more things change, the more they stay the same.

It's a shell game intended to keep us focused on and distracted by all of the politically expedient things that are being said - about militarized police, surveillance, and government corruption - while the government continues to frogmarch us down the road toward outright tyranny.

Unarmed citizens are still getting shot by militarized police trained to view them as the enemy and treated as if we have no rights. Despite President Obama's warning that the nation needs to do some "soul searching" about issues such as race, poverty, and the strained relationship between law enforcement and the minority communities they serve, police killings and racial tensions are at an all-time high. Just recently, in Texas, a white police officer was suspended after video footage showed him "manhandling, arresting, and drawing his gun on a group of black children outside a pool party."

Americans' private communications and data are still being sucked up by government spy agencies. The USA Freedom Act was just a placebo intended to make us feel better without bringing about any real change. As Bill Blunden, a cybersecurity researcher and surveillance critic, points out, "The theater we've just witnessed allows decision-makers to boast to their constituents about reforming mass surveillance while spies understand that what's actually transpired is hardly major change."