(NaturalNews) When you hear some pundit or historian compare the loss of democratic republican rule currently taking place in the United States with how it happened in ancient Rome, you may be tempted to shrug it off as hyperbole or over dramatization.When you hear a U.S. Supreme Court Justice and other top government officials use the comparison, it should alarm you tremendously because they are, in essence, firing a warning shot.In a recent Q & A with students of the, former Justice David Souter made the comparison above, along with several other observations that he says all add up to a potential loss of democratic government - and freedom - for Americans at some point in the future.Souter made his comments during a lengthy response to a student's question: "My question tonight is really around where we started this conversation, which was really around the schools... And, I've heard a lot this evening about democratic principles, civic engagement, and I guess I'm wondering...if you could share with us your thoughts about what the appropriate role and, probably, responsibility as well of our schools to produce civically engaged students?"Here are some excerpts of that response (This response earned Souter a round of applause)And what worries Souter the most about America's future?Sound familiar?Souter's not the only former Supreme Court Justice to warn of a coming dictatorship . In a 2006 speech at, former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said the right wing of U.S. politics was endangering the country's future, following a warning by then-GOP House leader Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas, who said some justices could be impeached:Former Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho, who chaired the Senate Foreign Intelligence Committee and convened the famous "Church Committee," which scrutinized an unlawful counterintelligence operation run by the FBI, said this in 1975:It should be noted that, ashas reported, the NSA is currently completing a massive $2 billion facility in Utah that will give the agency the capacity to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store incredible amounts of data gathered from the world over, grabbing communications as they beam down from satellites and race through underground and undersea cables domestically and overseas. ( https://www.naturalnews.com/035386_NSA_data_center_spying.html That program, codenamed, was described as patently unconstitutional by a former NSA official, William Binney, who left the agency in 2001, shortly after the NSA launched its warrantless wiretapping program."They violated the Constitution setting it up," he toldin an interview. "But they didn't care. They were going to do it anyway, and they were going to crucify anyone who stood in the way. When they started violating the Constitution, I couldn't stay."