On surveillance and Sci-Fi

I'm a little late catching up with this fascinating post from author Ken MacLeod on surveillance and science fiction writing.
It follows on from a workshop on surveillance he attended which was held on Jura - the island where Orwell wrote 1984. A rather marvellous idea to hold a meeting in such a place.
MacLeod's The Night Sessions and Execution Channel both have very interesting things to say about society through their setting in a British near future.