Greenwald insinuates throughout the entire reading of No Place to Hide, that the government believes that they should have surveillance on the entire state because of safety factors and that it would unite it more effectively. This coincides with the statement “Mass surveillance is a universal temptation for an unscrupulous power. And in every instance, the motive is the same: suppressing dissent and mandating power” (Greenwald, 4). If the government can pacify the people of the state by going under the illusion of safety, they can use “mass surveillance” and control the entire state without much, if any, dissent from the people. Greenwald’s stance is solid but his glazing over of how we can change things (other than using encryption like him) …show more content…
By focusing on these ideas, the government tries to convince the people that privacy is not needed in the grand scheme of “safety”. The information then collected allows the government unlimited power at that time, since the public does not know exactly how much privacy is appropriated. The government has gained enough power in certain places – for example, in America, the National Security Agency (NSA) governs all aspects of American privacy. Its power has reached so far into the state, that it has holds in corporations, public organizations, businesses of all sizes, the overall population, and government officials. They collect information about any item typed, whether searched or deleted, listen to phone calls, read texts, and can even watch the people of America through their cameras on any electronic device. The idea of this deep of an invasion into the everyday lives of normal citizens is clearly suspicious and only reinforces Grunewald’s points of why the government is really keeping its surveillance programs strongly in place. The people of America state that the surveillance of this magnitude does not bother them since “they are unthreatening and compliant” (Greenwald, 195); this collective thought does not diminish the power of the government – in fact, it allows the NSA to collect even more information, since they are not under scrutiny and fear of the people. But the NSA is not able to collect every piece of information, no government is able to collect that much data on the state. The illusion of that power is portrayed though, and since people act differently under the impression of scrutiny of said government, they have no trouble controlling the people through fear (Greenwald, 175). Fear or control are not what the people of the state immediately think of when government