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The neat thing, from a Big Brother's perspective, of indexing internet commenters to their real world identities and residences, is that you could select not for people of just an ethnicity, but of an espoused opinion. You could round up everyone who, say, spoke positively of unions or of helping people access abortion.

I cannot begin to tell you how dramatically this will intersect with a little bit of what's known as social network analysis (SNA). SNA is a bunch of things, but one of them is a computational method for figuring out which person is actually a secret ringleader or organizer of collective action, without reading what they actually write or listening into their actual conversations, just by analyzing who talks to whom.

SNA is a method for figuring out which employee is organizing the other employees. SNA is a method for figuring out which activist is coordinating the efforts of multiple activist groups.

Without wiretaps. Without subpoenas.

6/?