Last week, the Associated Press reported that efforts by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to combat coronavirus had “renewed questions about mass surveillance” in the Middle Eastern federation of sheikhdoms.

Believed to have “one of the highest per capita concentrations of surveillance cameras in the world,” the UAE is well poised to use the current pandemic to eviscerate civil liberties — not that there are really any to speak of in the first place.

The slightest criticism of the government can get you imprisoned, tortured, or disappeared; talking about human rights is a particularly dangerous pastime. In a country of obscene material wealth and malls with ski slopes, ubiquitous surveillance — of both physical movement and personal communications — means that freedom of speech, expression, association, and thought are practically nonexistent luxuries.