The Matrix

Gmail has a nice interface for keeping contact information. I can keep tabs on people. I can attach a limitless amount of phone numbers or email addresses. I can keep notes and link them to Google Chat. Soon, I will be able to use Google Wave and attach blogs, Twitter, pictures, documents, calendars, all cross linked and indexed for searching. That sounds like one stop shopping for the proper authorities with a warrant.
Facebook runs software to recognize faces in pictures. You can link a square of space in an uploaded pic to someone's profile. A story came out a while back that iTunes found a face in a pan of cookies, so it is not perfect by any measure. Still, this technology is the holy grail of data mining advocates.
In London and other parts of Briton, the cameras follow people everywhere. As a matter of fact, they can follow someone backwards. Once a crime is viewed on camera, operators can fallow a person forward or backward through the city. I've heard that clicking on spots in a frozen image can lead you to other cameras in the database that might have a better view of that spot. the time line can be moved back and forth with eas displaying a frozen snapshot of the city at a moment in time from any number of angles all linked and indexed for searching.
Add to this the location data contained in phones. The two databases can then be linked to one another and a bubble appears above every one's head as they walk around with their name and any flags that might be pertinent to the viewers. Ad to this the ID card and driver's license data, relatives, taxes and the data people leave behind when they travel. Oh, and don't forget any criminal history. Of course, that makes a difference. A flick of a switch displays that information next to every one in view of the cameras.
Now, add look over time and link known relationships between people who have spent time in the same residence or work place. People may have been on the same bus together, or flight, or passed one another on the street. Maybe they spent the night an arm's length apart many nights in a row. Which church, synagogue, mausq do they frequent?
Now, add credit card information. Add where they went to school, what they studied, professor and teacher comments, discipline issues, credits, awards.
Add employment history. Add exposure to knowledge like how to make two devices communicate and how to remotely control electronics. Add chemicals they have used and know how to use. Do they know how to fly a plane, navigate a suer, sky dive, scuba dive, scale a flat surface, can they swim?