The idea that there should be a total surveillance state that had access to all personal communications would be laughably unthinkable in the late 20th century. The people of the late 20th century were unaware of the existence of the NSA and its data collecting activities and, furthermore, the idea that the government could or should do that was firmly rejected in the public mind on the basis of upholding liberal values of freedom from tyranny and privacy.

However, in the 21st century we have grown accustomed to the idea that the NSA, GCHQ and other intelligence agencies routinely collect data on our precise second-to-second location, our personal communications and even, perhaps, our biometrics. Most people probably don't think much about this, preferring blissful ignorance or still stuck on the silly idea that it's "only metadata" (which of course is even itself incredibly rich and compromising).

Many who are against this Orwellian total surveillance react with calls to close down the NSA and to stop the collection of data. However, even in the mind of the most diehard libertarian is the awareness of the fact that these agencies are part of a cyber-military balance of power that both protects people against terrorist attacks and acts as a bulwark against overtly totalitarian states like Russia, Iran and China, who would gladly fill the surveillance void left by the likes of the NSA. Simply put, just like nuclear disarmament, although it would be ideal to simply abolish the NSA, it would be a bit like dropping your fists in a boxing match: it would invite you to get punched.

One quite radical solution to this problem could be to place a legal condition on publicly collected data: That if the military insists on collecting mass information then the public should have full and unrestrained access to this data.

Imagine a government provided web service where one can log in as a citizen of a nation and look up all military and government collected data of an individual. Imagine if this service included data crunching software that anyone could use for analysis and investigation.

This would have many interesting consequences. For a start, people would be a lot more careful about the data that they allow to be collected. This would give a practical reason (beyond the ideal reason) to use your phone less and to be more careful about what information you leave about yourself on the internet.

Furthermore, this data being publicly available could help communities be more empowered and independent. No longer would we need to rely on the police to provide CCTV evidence of a crime to prosecute someone in court, which they sometimes inexplicably refuse to release where petty crimes are concerned. We could get it ourselves.

Most radically, this would flip the tables in an unexpected manner. Instead of the military elite having exclusive access to the fine details of the public's lives, everyone would have access to the details of everyone's lives including the elite's.

The beauty of this solution is that is preserves liberal values, like privacy and freedom from surveillance but updates them in the 21st century.