In recent weeks, sales of Orwell’s 1984 have increased enormously. Is the federal surveillance regime Orwellian, or is it Kafkaesque, bearing in mind that Franz Kafka also wrote about authoritarian societies. In this Freeman piece, Sarah Skwire says that we should hope it won’t be Orwellian. In Kafka’s universe the incompetence of bureaucrats allowed people at least a bit of room to be themselves. Not so in Orwell’s world of 1984. But Big Brother kept the people safe.