When I was a child, no more than three or four years old, my mother told me that whenever I lied, she could read it on my forehead. I wasn’t really a mischievous child and didn’t lie often, so I thought this wouldn’t affect me. ‘Only bad kids would be afraid of this,’ I thought. But then thoughts arose: What if there was something I didn’t want my mother to know? What if I accidentally told a lie? Slowly but surely, I became increasingly paranoid. I turned into a child who was deathly afraid of telling any lie (I still sort of am). It was as if I was a prisoner in a panopticon, always watched, always under scrutiny.

I know my mother didn’t intend to make me feel this way, but that’s what happened. This power wasn’t specific to her either. In my mind, all parents could tap into the ability. I was convinced that if a child lied, their parents would see that lie written out on that blank canvas between the eyes and the head.

Not being able to control what information you keep to yourself and what others know of you is akin to being naked in the middle of the city with just your hands to cover yourself up, not able to control what people see and what they don’t. Usually, I’d say vulnerability is a good thing, that it can free you from the anxiety or fear that might be holding you back. However, this unwelcome nakedness is a type of vulnerability that isn’t courageous or freeing—it’s a vulnerability stripped of consent.

Soon I became the four-year-old equivalent to one of those old men who thinks that people in the government—or aliens—are able to read their minds. These men have tinfoil hats, hide in bunkers with too many guns, stash piles of canned food and keep purely analog technology. I, on the other hand, grew my hair to cover my forehead, looked down when speaking to my parents and trained my words to avoid even the whitest of lies. Somehow my mother still always knew when I spoke other than the truth (looking back it seems painfully obvious that looking directly at the floor when talking to her might have given me away).

One fateful day in kindergarten, we were going around and sharing a fun fact we had learned from our parents. Eager to help and warn my fellow classmates of this violation of our freedoms, I told them about this secret ability of parents. There was a long beat of silence followed by laughter as my fellow five- and six-year-old peers apparently had a better grasp of fantasy versus fiction than I did. I was a whistle-blower, trying to save them from this injustice of surveillance, and they laughed. Down the line, as retribution, I would tell them that Santa Claus isn’t real (I’m sorry, I was bitter).

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Later on in my life, in sixth grade, I learned about a man named Edward Snowden and how baby Abdullah was not too far off. It’s not our parents who can see when we lie, but the government.

In 2001, six weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. government passed the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act (USA PATRIOT Act). The Patriot Act allowed for U.S. intelligence agencies like the FBI, CIA and NSA to expand their surveillance abilities across the country. The legislation was passed without much debate, as many were still processing the 9/11 attacks and the act was framed as a way of protecting the country from any acts of terrorism in the future.

For the next 12 years, the country had little information about how the Patriot Act was being used, how the government was interpreting its words and what powers it was extending. That is, until 2013, when NSA intelligence contractor Edward Snowden leaked classified documents revealing the extent to which the government was using the Patriot Act to surveil its citizens and collect their personal data. Unbeknownst to everyone, the government was reading their foreheads (at least my mother had the decency to tell me she was doing it). Specifically, Snowden revealed that the NSA had been collecting the phone records of millions of Americans on the Verizon network. Additionally, he revealed the existence of Prism, a program under the Patriot Act that allowed for the access of emails, message history and files through the systems of organizations like Google, Apple and Facebook.

I detail this not because it’s information I think you don’t know, but because it’s information we so often keep in the recesses of our minds. If we were to take into account the fact that our every word and action was privy to our government’s eyes, it would seldom be difficult to do anything at all. There is a paralysis when one knows they are being watched; it’s a natural defense mechanism. The body freezes and the eyes dart back in an attempt to see if the surveilling predator can still view us in our still state.

To keep this information at the forefront of our minds is to develop a (warranted) pervading paranoia, well past the natural instinct of freezing in the wake of a predator. As a defense, our minds push this information back, shielding us from the horrifying truth. The lasting impacts of this suppression are already being seen today: self-censorship, difficulties in political organizing and the erosion of overall trust—both between individuals and between individuals and institutions. Little Abdullah learned this lesson quickly with his failed kindergarten mobilization.

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We are becoming less and less comfortable with real vulnerability. Many people are emotionally on guard, careful of what they reveal of themselves and to whom. We are in what many are calling a “trust deficit.” The 2025 World Social Report by the UN details that “over half of the global population reports little to no trust in their government” and “trust between individuals is also low—fewer than 30 percent believe most people can be trusted.” All of a sudden, we don’t seem too far off from the crazy old man hiding in his bunker.

And our horizons are not brightening. Surveillance technology has steadily advanced since 2013, with increasingly intrusive ways to collect a person’s personal information. Most recently, the inclusion of AI into the realm of surveillance is opening countless possibilities of violating people’s privacy. Organizations like the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are using larger AI software platforms—whose operations are harder to oversee—in order to utilize AI tools in their surveillance. This technology gives ICE access to advanced facial recognition software and increased ability to parse through data from phones and other devices. So not only is this technology violating our privacy, but it’s also being used to hunt and violently kidnap people from the streets. As of February 7, there are over 50,000 people with no criminal conviction held in ICE detention.

I’m afraid. I’m afraid we are losing ourselves and losing each other. I’m afraid of a world in which our autonomy is being stripped from us and our will to fight back is being taken with it. I’m afraid that we are living in that world.