John Lanchester The Guardian, Thursday 3 October 2013: "When I first read Foucault's account of the panopticon, where the individual at the centre can simultaneously see and judge a whole multitude of other individuals, I thought it was brilliant but overheated. Now, it actually seems like somebody's plan. That's what we risk becoming: a society which is in crucial respects a giant panopticon, where the people with access to our secrets can see, hear, intercept and monitor everything." "If we are going to remake society in the image of the fight against terrorism, and put that secret fight at the heart of our democratic order – which is the way we're heading – we need to discuss it, and in public." We are right on the verge of being an entirely new kind of human society, one involving an unprecedented penetration by the state into areas which have always been regarded as private. Do we agree to that? If we don't, this is the last chance to stop it happening. Our rulers will say what all rulers everywhere have always said: that their intentions are good, and we can trust them. They want that to be a sufficient guarantee."