When Seamus is arrested for spying on other people’s conversations about economics, it becomes pretty clear that the government doesn’t actually frown on monitoring the actions and communications of individuals. They just frown on OTHER people doing it. Despite the initial outcry when Edward Snowden leaked the details of the US government’s domestic surveillance apparatus to the public, the broad and often warrantless collection of metadata continues to happen. Constant surveillance leads to serious problems, not least of which is self-censorship.