Lonegunman65, With all due respect, I think that's just a lack of imagination. One of the reasons the chinese are far ahead of American intelligence services is because they have devolved the scrutiny of surveillance to a lower level operative. Simply, they have a lot more people who have nothing better to do than to scrutinize your behavior. And each of those low level functionaries knows your name, credit score, recent purchases, commenting history, movements, family and friends with every step you take. Of course, they can also tell your neighbors about what to be concerned about, what to look out for, provide them with news sources to bias them about what kind of people are good and bad. This can be automated. These are algorithmic systems. They don't need to give a damn about you personally to be able to scew with everyone like you, everyone related to you. The only reason you don't have to worry (for now) about surveillance is that they're incompetent. But once you've given them that vast power, it's just a matter of time...