Oddly, I’ve never been too freaked out by the government watching. I know the potential and risk there, but it doesn’t seem to cause the anxiety the “Little Brothers” do. The immediate, temperament-driven (and thus on topic) reason this stuff sends me screaming is my need to control my own image.
It’s a sanguine supine thang, I guess

Oh, now I’m getting all inspired about writing a sci-fi short: “The Dark Clowd Cometh…” If I have nightmares, it’s ya’lls fault!

On the other hand, I can’t say I am too surprised that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security would give a derisive response when the topic came up.

I too am a Google fan, googledoc, gmail, googlecalendar, even googlereader. But, I haven’t any naive delusions about their purpose, or that of microsoft. But, greed is something I can understand.

Shall we do an Oceanic Two Minutes Hate? I hear it is very therapeutic. Damn Emmanuel Goldstein! Damn him! I can’t wait until 11:00.

I’m not the first to put it this way, but “Big Brother” the government, although certainly capable of evil as any bureaucracy is, is not the biggest problem. Hey, that Big Brother at least tries to do the right thing, sort of kind of.

It’s the little independent brothers, trying to do “cool things” that worry me, like Google, Microsoft, and others we have yet to hear from!

“Little Brothers” — a big problem brewing.
I’ll give Google as an example, and I’m a BIG Google fan, but they are a textbook example of an entity that has become too powerful too fast. Not that I’d ever recommend “Big Brother” intervention.

Having the Universal Mob and their automated software watching my every move (and making decisions for me accordingly) is even freakier to me than having the government peering over my shoulder.