With the NSA contractor Ed Snowden turning rogue and spilling the beans on the PRISM network he was once party to, things are certainly ramping up in our own backyard as well.
The Government's embarrassment over the Kim Dotcom affair and Operation 8 have led it to change electronic spying law to effectively legitimise illegal actions by intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
And just to rub it in, Silicon Valley's most powerful companies would be forced to open their data to the GCSB under the proposed Telecommunications Interception Capability and Security (TICS) Bill. Prime Minister Key has already played the 'soft on terrorism' card, which doesn't seem to wash with many.
There's a school of thought that there was a full-on dossier on the 9/11 plot before it happened, but that it was not acted on by President Bush Jr despite the necessary intelligence apparatus being in place. And there were claims that Russia did actually have some good old-fashioned intelligence on the Tsarnaev brothers who pulled off the Boston Marathon bombings, but that the FBI, CIA and Homeland Security didn't take them seriously. If true, all this can only stoke suspicions that we're in a perpetual war with Eastasia.
In the words of American founding father Benjamin Franklin, "those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
To finish off, here are some real adverts that go to show that life has imitated art.
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