There are concerns about the surveillance society, that it is slowly creeping and gaining a momentum that is potentially dangerous. I agree. There is a subtle coerciveness about the modern world with its ever-increasing systems for organising almost every aspect of experience. Of course systems are needed to help things along but bad systems can be disastrous as history bears testament.

It's fair to say that many systems are relatively benign. They can be annoying and more difficult to negotiate than they should be. That is reason enough to improve them but probably little about them is any more sinister than that. I think most people don't care much being fairly law-abiding and conformist. As long as the systems don't impinge on their lives too much they go along.

So far, fair enough. But the sinister part of this is in the assumption that the liberal authorities we have in the western world are fundamental and will maintain. They may not necessarily. Democracy is a fairly recent advent. It is still a fledgling thing and although brilliantly successful in many ways is something that could be easily undermined and quickly destroyed.

If liberal governments faltered to be replaced with old fashioned authoritarian institutions, or even worse, with unaccountable dictatorships prepared to knock down any form of dissent, it would be a very different story. Systems set up during more benign times which seemed then to be quite harmless, everything from street cameras to identity cards to terrorist legislation, could easily be turned around and used to the detriment of the populace. Those who didn't care much during the good times would come to care very much indeed as the freedoms thought to be sacrosanct were stripped away.

Beware the creep!