It goes with the territory. If you publicly oppose government policies, you will be watched. Both parties do it.  Susan Sarandon also says she was denied a White House security clearance.
I took this photo of her at a Hollywood anti-war rally in 2003 that I helped organize. (As you can see, she looks very very dangerous indeed.) So, I’ve probably been monitored too. This is not paranoia. Antiwar activists in the 1960’s who did FOIA requests twenty years later were stunned when they discovered just how much they’d been watched. All of which is a blip compared to what protesters in Egypt, Syria, and Bahrain endure. Onward.
It is not us that are pranoid, it is the state. Anything or anyone that is thought in any way manner or form to be the least threat to it, will be watched, and that just about takes in everybody.