A political cartoon shows a massive stone wall surrounding tall office buildings which bear labels of "Department of Energy," "Defense Department," "National Security Agency," "CIA," and "FBI." Outside the wall, which is tagged "Government Secrecy," a couple huddles in a roofless hut called "Personal Non-Privacy." At the top of the cartoon is printed "Somehow I feel this is not the way the founders planned it." Indeed, America's founding fathers most likely did not plan for the United States to be governed in such a manner that the people of its democracy would feel debunked. How, then, did the United States since its founding in 1776 come to this feeling of exposure?
             Such an expansive question does not possess only one answer, of course. Multiple factors have caused United States citizens to feel the "personal non-privacy" Washington Post cartoonist Herblock depicts. Throughout American history the government has taken advantage of its ability to control; and, often led by an incendiary, people have been brought forth and laid bare in front of turbulent crowds. One of the first instances of this public inquest occurred in 1692 during the Salem witch trials, and then the probing happened again in the 1950s during the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) trials.
             Hysteria gripped the small colony of Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 as adolescent girls cried out that they saw Satan talking to some of the colonists. These accused were then put on trial and made to either confess and name others who were associating with the Devil, or the accused who did not confess to working with the Devil were convicted, imprisoned and, not infrequently, killed. Ultimately, the governor of Massachusetts intervened and put an end to the witch trials, but not before fourteen women and five men hung as witches in Salem ("Witch Hunt Hysteria").
             A similar excitement occurred again in the 1950s. Throughout the decade the United States f...