In the recent documentary "the Mindscape of Alan Moore," Moore facetiously takes credit for the installation of CCTV cameras on every street in England. In his book V For Vendetta, this was presented as a symbol of a terrifying future nightmare. But as that's pretty much the norm in real life, in Britain and in many places in America, that had to be played down almost two decades later in the film version, as nobody considers that odd anymore. And thanks to television, the word "Big Brother" now calls up not fear but a popular TV show, where people have gotten used to the idea of being under surveillance. Thanks to similar shows here, so have we.

So Britain has taken the logical next step: installing them in private homes. The thin edge of the wedge is in the homes of dysfunctional families, with problem children, and is already in 2,000 homes. As usual with every form of repression, children and their welfare are given as justification. It's always the same, whether with this, censorship, or the like: for the sake of the children we must all be infantilized, and be made to believe that while we might have rights, we're not responsible or smart enough to use them. And that privacy is dangerous.

It won't be difficult if someone wants to institute that here; the GOP was already well on its way, considering that it thought nothing of illegal wiretaps and reading US citizens' e-mails. We've already become accustomed to broadcasting our status to the world on a regular basis through Twitter or Facebook, about the smallest and most insignificant things. Addicted to it, in fact. Why do we want the world to know what we're doing? Would we care, then, if the government wanted to watch it? All that we'd need, to agree to it, was to know it would be on national television.

Does anyone remember what it was like for this not to be the norm? When reading that in "V For Vendetta" or "1984" was frightening?