If It's Just Your Heart Talking, I Don't Mind

This is how this Golden Shield will work: Chinese citizens will be watched around the clock through networked CCTV cameras and remote monitoring of computers. They will be listened to on their phone calls, monitored by digital voice-recognition technologies. Their Internet access will be aggressively limited through the country's notorious system of online controls known as the "Great Firewall." Their movements will be tracked through national ID cards with scannable computer chips and photos that are instantly uploaded to police databases and linked to their holder's personal data. This is the most important element of all: linking all these tools together in a massive, searchable database of names, photos, residency information, work history and biometric data. When Golden Shield is finished, there will be a photo in those databases for every person in China: 1.3 billion faces.

Even though it tips the scales at about 11 pages, take a few minutes this weekend to read Naomi Klein's piece in the latest issue of Rolling Stone. George Orwell's nightmare vision of the future might just be taking shape in modern-day China.

"China's All-Seeing Eye" by Naomi Klein of Rolling Stone.