If you look at the way modern society is operating, it is eerily familiar with what was described in 1984. If you’re not familiar with the book ‘1984’ by George Orwell, you should read it. I read it for my English literature list at my secondary school, and it has stuck with me till this day. It describes a dystopian society in which the government and the elite that forms it totally control society though propaganda and oppression techniques.One of the features of that society is that the elite operates a thought police, called thinkpol, which monitors society through an elaborate system of two way televisions (which work in a manner analogous to a two way mirror) and a network of informants that tracks down dissidents before they can become harmful to the power of the elite.

It has been noted in other media before that the way modern secret services operate is much the same as the MO of thinkpol in 1984.

If it isn’t here yet, it certainly is coming. Following the example of the NSA and GCHQ, the Dutch secret services have ordered systems that will allow for mass automated eavesdropping. Now in a way this is already possible by requisitioning the metadata from telecom companies, but these systems would enable to collect and store all the data you send over the internet, not just metadata (even though it is passed as harmless, metadata is worth more because it involves uncovering your network and movement details). forbidden words are like forbidden thoughts, and filtering and then prosecuting people on what they say, not what they do, would equate to having a thought police. The end of the free world.

I keep wondering who has an interest in limiting our freedom this way. And make no mistake, this is a limitation of freedom. You’re effectively locked up in your ways of thinking by policies that very often you don’t have any say over. It doesn’t make me feel safer either. Governmental agencies often make errors while doing the things they’re supposed to do, and the agencies involved in spying are no exception. (Because that’s as statistically likely as winning the lottery) I think it is likely that those errors are more costly than the damage incurred by a couple of loonies not being checked by mass surveillance.