From Orwell to Snowden, the slippery slope towards Chinese-style surveillance in democracies

Note : After the 14-part series in which we looked at how nation-states are being disrupted by the Internet and globalization, and a 4-part series on why now is the worst time for them, I have concluded that there are two main ways for governments to respond to these disruptions:

• Increasingly control what their residents do, via permanent digital surveillance and the use of AI and machine learning (China's way)
• Accept that their role will diminish and treat their residents more like customers

In this new series, corresponding to chapter 4 of my forthcoming book, we analyze the (very) slippery slope towards generalized surveillance to which many countries, including the most democratic, are committing themselves.