No change, no hope
Xymphora: No change, no hope ■ "Tomgram: Alfred McCoy, It's About Blackmail, Not National Security" Blackmail is important, but I think the bigger reason for the mass surveillance state is to create the general idea (paranoia) that since they know everything about everyone, the destruction of your reputation and your life is always possible, and will be used against you if you even think subversive thoughts, subversion being anything that might undermine the position of the 1%. Surveillance is social control (and has been under every fascist government through recorded history). We still have the war on drugs for the same reason, but the surveillance threat tends to be more effective against slightly higher classes.