> What I think could be argued as an illusion is that this period of safety has been due to increased surveillance and espionage, especially domestic surveillan

> What I think could be argued as an illusion is that this period of safety has been due to increased surveillance and espionage, especially domestic surveillance. Exactly. As we all should know by now, 'Correlation != Causation'. This increase in safety could just as easily be attributed to the Flynn Effect[1] as it can to spying. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect