Surveillance isn’t new. The ruling powers have surveilled as much as they can throughout history, although prior to the advent of mechanic computers to tabulate census data (which insurance companies started doing first iirc, to make more money by charging appropriate premiums and charging personalised rates) it was hard to do it on any scale in a remotely timely manner.

It was done to “aid in ruling”, to know the mood of the people and to nip seccession and unrest in the bud. You didn’t want a Catholic/Puritan/Rival claimant group to be able to establish itself and pose of threat, not to speak of foreign intrigue.

Now a days, with the second (now possibly even third telecommunications revolution) surveillance on a individual is possible to a level of granularity in effectively real time never before deemed possible.

We have yet to really see what this means as the powers in every country have held back on the use of these new powers in order to not alienate or scare the populace. Yes, even in the PRC they hold back allowing people to send critical messages in private - reserving the data based crack down on people who dare to publicly share such thoughts or work on organising.

But despite that, for all the nations with control over their data networks, the goal is the same: preservation of the power structure. Systems are self preserving, and stopping the people without a say or power over the system making large alterations is the primary goal. Be it couched in terms of “anti-terrorism”, anti-subversion", “treachery”, “public safety”, “morality” or the like.