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Every modern authoritarian regime relies on mass surveillance as a cornerstone of its power.

Edit: for example, North Korea, Soviet bloc countries past and present, Fascist states...

I always thought it was the oppressive laws, poor economies, concentration camps and (in many cases) out right starvation of the populace that held the people in check. To me those things seem a lot more important that the gov't snooping on my email.

So just because we are not rounding dissenters up into concentration camps or starving half the population to death David Cameron (or whoever the next one is) should be able to search my entire communication and location history?

That attitude sends society rapidly back to the concentration camps and starvation.

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9049096, for example.

>It has? When?

A precise example: "the Stasi" in East Germany during the 80s.