Fear of the folk is the one lasting impression left by the National Park Service's fortress on Fifth Avenue in Anchorage. For some odd reason, every time I visit there, the building triggers a flashback to the title sequence of the old, old television series "Get Smart," wherein secret agent Maxwell Smart gains entry to his headquarters through a number of unmarked doors that ended at a phone booth.

At the Park Service, there is only one door -- a locked elevator door -- and a phone. No receptionist. Not even a video display to put a human face on things.

This isn't so much where the regional office of the agency resides as where the regional office of the agency hides. But hey, it could be worse. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has armed guards and body scanners to make sure no riffraff get beyond the front doors to corrupt federal scientists.

And God forbid the people in the Fish and Wildlife Service building should ever decide you've broken a federal wildlife law because they will descend on your home with a SWAT team. That is the protocol. I am not making this up. They won't try to avoid danger by, say, following you to your local Carrs grocery where a couple agents in plain clothes can sidle up behind you, flash their badges, and politely say, "Excuse me, Mr. Medred. Could you come with us, please?"

Oh, no. Because they are dealing with hunters, and because hunters have guns (duh), the USFWS comes to visit with the full-on, combat-style invasion that has become the norm for a lot of police organizations in this country. At the federal level in particular, the idea of the friendly neighborhood policeman is long gone.

What happened to the days when public employees in America were the servants of the people, not the lords over the people? What happened to the days when federal buildings in America were public buildings, open and welcoming to the public?

I don't know if federal agencies everywhere now act as if they live in fear of the citizens of this country. I don't even know if all federal agencies in Alaska act as if they live in the fear of the citizens of this country. But I do know the agencies with which I am most familiar act this way, and I know the Federal Bureau of Investigation building in downtown Anchorage looks even more like a fortress than the Park Service's Fortress on Fifth.

Against this backdrop of a budding police state, Americans might have realistic reasons to be afraid of their government. Is it any wonder, then, why the Tea Party has broken onto the scene as a new political force opposed, as far as I can tell, to pretty much all things government? This is not a bad thing, and it has generated a fair bit of attention for Alaska given that our half-term former governor and her handlers have played the Tea Party beautifully.

Sarah Palin, the Wonder from Wasilla, has been pounding the drum in warning against big government since her failed run for vice president along with John McCain. The drumbeats resonate not just because government is big. They resonate because government has become removed from Americans. I go to the aforementioned Park Service building on a semi-regular basis. Most times, I am invited as someone on relatively friendly terms with the people there. Nonetheless, the nature of the building overwhelms me. It leaves me with the feeling of repressive government.

It makes it easy to understand why so many Americans seem suddenly in rebellion. Sure, it seems a little ironic to have the former governor of Alaska egging them on, given that newly revealed e-mails between onetime Gov. Sarah and then-First Dude Todd Palin, the shadow governor, show them trying to use the power of government to silence their critics. But be that as it may, someone should be shouting a warning against a government growing bigger and more distant from its people by the day.