Twelve Days in Xinjiang: How China’s Surveillance State Overwhelms Daily Life
I think one of the few really, really good things we have left in the US is that I _feel_ that I am trusted to do the right thing.<p>I was in Singapore, a rich, orderly state for an internship a couple of years ago. There were cameras everywhere: Cameras on the sidewalks, cameras on the staircases, cameras in residential apartments, cameras in the subway, cameras at the workplace. There were very few places I feel not watched. I have to hunt for them. This is very contrasted with the US, where mostly I feel that I have my privacy and trusted to do the right thing. That&#x27;s a very powerful feeling.<p>But that is going away with smartphone cameras and surveillance cameras. They are getting cheaper, and no one is here to be fighting against them. Maybe that&#x27;s a one-way road, there is not much we can do about it. Maybe that&#x27;s for the better, but somehow I feel life is much more boring that way.