>Pre-automation surveillance states were people and paper-intensive. They didn't scale. Tell that to people who lived in eastern block countries. I agree that

>Pre-automation surveillance states were people and paper-intensive. They didn't scale. Tell that to people who lived in eastern block countries. I agree that this technology, like all communication technology, makes it easier for governments to repress their people. However, I don't think there's any reason to believe this is the straw that finally subjugates all mankind under tyrannical government or that this technology will be any different than previous advances. As I said before, this is only one of many technologies that are necessary to run the theoretical nightmare scenario you've outlined. The main difference, from my point of view, is that that other technologies are older and the doomsday scenarios predicted with the rise of telephones, computers and other advances have not come to pass. At the same time, we've had plenty of time to appreciate the advantages of older technology and balance its use in society. For the recent Paris terror attacks, at least some of the planning was done over text messages. The text messaging system is a better fit for the kind of dystopic observation you're describing: the infrastructure is more centralized, there is lots of legal precedent for observation, there are weak safeguards and no fancy voice recognition is necessary. Of course, the only way we know about the text messages is that they found a physical phone - because despite 20 years of commercial availability - such monitoring is not in place for text messages.