“Within the next few years,” he writes, “it will be technically possible and financially feasible for authoritarian governments to record nearly everything that is said or done within their borders - every phone conversation, electronic message, social media interaction, the movements of nearly every person and vehicle, and video from every street corner.” The machinery for such monitoring - from intercepting electronic communications to recording images of faces and licence plates in public spaces - already exists and is rapidly improving. Yet, it is the plummeting cost of data storage that makes total surveillance a real possibility.“