Looking at my son’s face, I could see the worm inching its way into his consciousness ready to deliver its venomous instructions:  Be cautious. Conform. Obey. The entire architecture of surveillance was migrating to a place inside his head. I recalled the philosopher Hannah Arendt’s mournful observations, as she watched totalitarianism engulf Europe in the buildup to World War II. She feared that the sovereign value of individuality might be extinguished by this noxious force.  “The trouble with modern theories of behaviorism”, she wrote, “is not that they are wrong but that they could become true…that the modern age—which began with such an unprecedented and promising outburst of human activity—may end in the deadliest, most sterile passivity history has ever known.”. My heart was breaking, touched by memories of an earlier time, overwhelmed by the sense of what we are loosing, what my boy may never know.

Since that evening, I have learned to recognize the terror worm in many of its guises. A student whom I am supervising in an independent study on “distributed coordination” finds in Al Qaeda’s military operations a fascinating case study. Last week he wondered if I thought his online searches could get him into trouble.  “With whom?” I asked.  He wasn’t sure. “No way,” I reassured him, “this isn’t East Germany in 1980. It’s not like the Stasi are out there watching.”  Later I realized that it didn’t matter if anyone ‘watched’ or not. All that mattered was that he was already infected.  Still later I realized, maybe they are watching….

My banker friend in Chicago admonishes me, only half joking, not to talk about my sense of outrage on the phone. “It’s all data”, he cautions. “They look for patterns.”

Another friend has just arrived. In her hotel room she opens her suitcase to retrieve some work. Her face reddens in confusion and alarm: the once neatly packed contents of her case are a jumble of clothes and papers. “They’ve been through everything”, she says in disgust. “I need a drink. I need a shower.”

One evening at home, my son and I recall highlights of our Paris trip, especially his scientific sampling of pastries and chocolates across several neighborhoods.  “Let’s return soon”, I say.  He hesitates.

“I had such a great time, but I don’t know if I want to travel again. The airport was so scary. Remember when they yelled at you, Mom?”

He says he wants to write a book. I ask him what it would be about. “I want to write about a dystopia, you know, like Vonnegut–where no one has any rights. It would be very depressing, but there would be little glimmers of hope. The big surprise would come at the end when the reader would discover that it’s not a dystopia after all. It’s real life.”

I’ve got my work cut out for me now.  I must find a way to disable the terror worm in my boy.  In my boy and in yours. When the last soldier returns to American soil, this war on this front will continue to rage. It’s unintended consequence: the suppression of the hard won sense of psychological self determination that is the hallmark of our age. This contest isn’t over. We must win back what we are losing– not from the terrorists, but from the hackers.