Woz compares today's US to the USSR of 30-40 years ago

On the other hand I wonder if that might say something about these specific people, and if it might have varied by place. I've talked to a lot of people from Russia (as opposed to satellite republics) who say that it wasn't really on very many people's minds at the time.

- Every phone call would start with the operator informing you that "the call is being monitored, the call is being monitored". Everybody knew, nobody cared. US does the same thing, although automatically,not with actual people listening to what you say - apparently, that makes it completely ok.

- You couldn't travel out of town before reporting that fact to the police. US does not need to do that, since they can easily monitor where you are anyway, using your cellphone, automatic car plate readers along roads, face detectors in major towns, and transaction monitoring. Again, apparently completely ok, because terrorists. 30 years ago we had "enemies of the state". It's just the name that changes, the principle behind it does not.

- Everyone was equal,but obviously, people in power were more equal than others. Whatever they said was the law. A regular discussion with an official would look like that: -"you can't do this" , "yes I can, there is a regulation x.y that says I can", "no, because I said so". An official complaint could end with a prompt visit from local police department or even KGB. "Disturbing public order". "Disruption to government activities". "Stopping a government official from doing their work". They would find a paragraph for you. There used to be a saying "show me a man, and I will find a paragraph for him". In my personal opinion, the US is pretty much the same nowadays. You have secret courts from which decisions you cannot appeal from, you can be given an official order and at the same time not be allowed to speak about it, or a most recent example from today - a US official saying that complaining about the quality of water can be treated like terrorism. Or complete inability to find out why one has been placed on a no-fly list. Government says so, so it goes.

- Speaking of no-fly lists, you had to apply for a passport if you wanted to leave the country, it would be issued for a limited number of days, and then had to be returned to the nearest police department. US is not keeping your passports,but then it doesn't need to - someone,somewhere, in a secret office that will deny its own existence, a decision can be made to put you on the no-fly list. Effectively banning you from leaving the country forever. The same method has been used before to exile people out of US - you can't fly back, and most companies that travel by sea won't accept people who are on the no-fly lists too, so your options are limited to nearly zero.

- Post offices would regularly open your correspondence to check for any "illegal" material. This is the same to me as your border agents and TSA agents strip-searching people,their cars and their baggage without a warrant, for no reason(pardon, for "national security" reasons), not only at the airports,but also within the 100 mile radius from the boarder.

- Journalists were obviously monitored and could only write about state-approved matters. In the US journalists have been threatened with prison for writing about some of the processes of Guantanamo prisoners. Personally, I don't see a difference here.

- People would be send to prisons without a trial. As far as I understand,this is how Guantanamo works, nothing more needs to be said.

- People were rewarded for spying on each other and telling on one another. Noticed your neighbor has more shiny things than you do? Report him and our glorious party will reward you. It was reported today that Obama wants to prosecute people who don't report on whistleblowers. Again, I don't see the difference here.

- Most people had files on them kept by the secret police, where agents would write down every detail about you, if you happened to catch their attention somehow. Then all of that could be used in court against you. And existence of such archives was always denied, even though everyone knew they existed. Once again - I absolutely don't see a difference between this and what NSA has been doing.

I could go on and on about this. But once again - I don't think the US is turning into a Soviet state. But I am saying that US is using surveillance methods that have been used in the past, and it can and will escalate into something ugly if not stopped early on. I can understand however, that people who have not lived in a soviet state would not recognize the looming danger here. But they need to if they want to remain what the US was always to me when I was a kid - a land of freedom.