Dystopia from Wikipedia: Dystopian literature has underlying cautionary tones, warning society that if we continue to live how we do, this will be the consequence. A dystopia, thus, is regarded as a sort of negative utopia and is often characterized by an authoritarian or totalitarian form of government. Dystopias usually feature different kinds of repressive social control systems, a lack or total absence of individual freedoms and expressions and constant states of warfare or violence. Dystopias often explore the concept of technology going “too far” and how humans individually and en masse use technology. A dystopian society is also often characterized by mass poverty for most of its inhabitants and a large military-like police force.

Keeping the US safe is a reverse technique.

In order to put even more people on the 4,000-plus terror watch list, officials say they have made it easier to add individuals’ names to a terrorist watch list and improved the government’s ability to thwart an attack in the United States.
As this fright of terror escalates, there’s only one ending to the story.

Chris Hedges at truthdig has a must-read commentary on the developing survelliance state of the US.
This country is entering a brave new world encouraged by big brother.
Hedges compares Orwell and Huxley at the brink of 2011.
A few snippets:

We have been gradually disempowered by a corporate state that, as Huxley foresaw, seduced and manipulated us through sensual gratification, cheap mass-produced goods, boundless credit, political theater and amusement.
While we were entertained, the regulations that once kept predatory corporate power in check were dismantled, the laws that once protected us were rewritten and we were impoverished.
Now that credit is drying up, good jobs for the working class are gone forever and mass-produced goods are unaffordable, we find ourselves transported from “Brave New World” to “1984.”
The state, crippled by massive deficits, endless war and corporate malfeasance, is sliding toward bankruptcy.
It is time for Big Brother to take over from Huxley’s feelies, the orgy-porgy and the centrifugal bumble-puppy.
We are moving from a society where we are skillfully manipulated by lies and illusions to one where we are overtly controlled.
…
Those who do not comply with the dictates of the war on terror, a war which, as Orwell noted, is endless, are brutally silenced.
The draconian security measures used to cripple protests at the G-20 gatherings in Pittsburgh and Toronto were wildly disproportionate for the level of street activity.
But they sent a clear message—DO NOT TRY THIS.
The FBI’s targeting of antiwar and Palestinian activists, which in late September saw agents raid homes in Minneapolis and Chicago, is a harbinger of what is to come for all who dare defy the state’s official Newspeak.
The agents — our Thought Police — seized phones, computers, documents and other personal belongings.
Subpoenas to appear before a grand jury have since been served on 26 people.
The subpoenas cite federal law prohibiting “providing material support or resources to designated foreign terrorist organizations.”
Terror, even for those who have nothing to do with terror, becomes the blunt instrument used by Big Brother to protect us from ourselves.

Read the whole compelling post — be afraid, be fuckin’ afraid.