The American government is not lacking in controversial decisions, from starting a war in Iraq based on faulty intelligence, to using drone strikes to kill American citizens overseas. Then there's your occasional conspiracy theory that attempts to pin something absurd on the government, like 9/11 being orchestrated by the Bush Administration. As crazy as that seems, every once in awhile, the truth is crazier than fiction. The U.S. government has done its share of things that test the concept of liberty, and a lot of them—while seemingly impossible today—only happened a few decades ago. For some families, the effects of what the government has done may still ripple into 2015.

While this is by no means a comprehensive list of all the government has done wrong (let's leave what they've done to foreign countries for another day), here are some of the craziest true things that the American government actually has done to Americans. Leave the conspiracy theories at the door.