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Police State

Definition

A police state is a totalitarian regime where the government exercises rigid control over its citizens' lives through pervasive surveillance, secret police forces, censorship and other forms of state control.

Analogy

Imagine if your parents monitored every single thing you did - they read all your texts messages or emails without your permission; they installed cameras everywhere around your house; they punished you severely for any small mistake. That's what living under a police state feels like.

Related terms

Totalitarianism: A system where there is absolute centralization of power in an autocratic authority with no tolerance for political pluralism or independent media.

Surveillance State: A country where the government engages in extensive monitoring or tracking its citizens' activities for controlling or influencing the society.

Censorship: The suppression of speech, public communication, or other information on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or "inconvenient" as determined by a government.