George Orwell once wrote that if you want a vision of the future,
"imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- forever." Governments have
suppressed citizen dissent for as long as there have been governments
and citizens to dissent against them. But over the last decade, it has
become increasingly likely that someone will be there to document
Orwell's predicted face-stamping with a cellphone and then post it to
YouTube for the world to see. It's getting increasingly difficult for
governments to get away with suppressing dissent.