Government surveillance drove Hemingway to kill himself

AS an example of the effect that persistent, total government surveillance has on an individual, look to what likely drove Ernest Hemingway to commit suicide: continuous surveillance by government agents. 

The FBI monitored Hemingway continuously from the 1940s until his suicide in 1961, ostensibly based on his ties to Cuba.  There’s a story of a distraught Hemingway sitting in a restaurant with his wife.  When she asked what was wrong, he responded with, “Those two FBI agents at the bar, that’s what’s wrong.”

This happens to journalists all the time.  Low-level harassment, the purpose being nothing more than breaking the spirit of the target.

Barrett Brown is a more recent example of the psychological effect that the harassment of journalists by armed government agents has.

And there’s the strange death of journalist Michael Hastings, whose car inexplicably accelerated before crashing in a ball of fire.

Wikileaks later released CIA documents revealing that smart cars can be remotely hacked, and that doing so would be a wonderful way to off someone they deemed needed it.

“Beware then, that when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster, and when you stare into the abyss, the abyss also stares into you.” -Nietzche