During America’s Thanksgiving, we should have been more grateful for our privacy or rather the veil surrounding our surveillance programs. On November 24th, 2016, the United Kingdom Parliament published The Investigatory Powers Bill which will force internet providers to hold their users search history and internet usage for a year. This information will be made available to government bodies such as the police.

While this bill may seem harmless enough, it sets the precedent for internet privacy around the world. This is only the first step towards a government controlled internet. The United Kingdom would be watching over the every move of its citizens in the name of “security”. While the quote "if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear" could be applied in a counter argument, this doesn’t address the fact that the United Kingdom government could simply fake records of people they deem to be “dangerous to society”. These people would be pushed out of society by the government and instill a sense of fear among all citizens.

Nevertheless, privacy is a never ending battle that citizens of all countries around the world must fight for. While the United Kingdom and most major world powers (including the United States) probably watch over us, we should be grateful that as of now, average citizens aren’t being arrested in the streets for their private internet usage. While we may seem to be getting one step closer to “1984” or “The Brave New World”, we should be thankful that we aren’t there yet and that change in the world is still possible.