Let’s talk politics! (Score 2, Interesting)

Some trends you anticipated seem to be coming about to greater or lesser degrees. Increasingly, governments track their own citizens. Some are pushing for mandatory ID's at birth. In the U.S., activities that would have caused outrage 50 years ago are becoming commonplace. Activities like warrant-less searches, random highway stops based on 'racial profiling', surveillance cameras that see through walls, etc. Other countries like the U.K. and Australia have (attempted) to ban all firearms. Gene sequences are being patented and cloning is a reality. In your Known Space timeline, these were generally good things. The U.N. ran an effective world government. Surveillance tech let planetary police get crime under control. Organ theft was only existed until lab growing techniques were perfected, and mass disarmament put an end to intra-species conflicts. Given that context, where do you see these trends ending up? What do you see at the history of the next X number of years?