The emotional and psychological acceptance and trivialization of surveillance (and other things like violence) is also done through the work of artists (in tandem with other people, particularly those in academia, entertainment, mass communication, and certainly, science).
One very recent, on-going and hugely popular example is Endemol and their programs (i.e. Fear Factor, Big Brother, etc.) Have you ever seen Big Brother? As the joke goes, if Orwell was alive today he'd be rolling over in his grave!
Stimulus such as "Big Brother" are very effective in the habituation process, such that later, it will become easier to, for example, implement a national ID system (with RFID) without question or debate, because the resistance will be limited to only a small marginalized minority that can efficiently be ignored.
In Amsterdam, I noticed that shops that had surveillance cameras made it clear that there are such cameras by displaying stickers on their shop windows. People there are also very sensitive about being photographed. I don't know if that is still very true. In Singapore surveillance systems are not very easy to spot - until you do something. While there, we joked that if we threw a piece of gum on the ground in a shopping mall, police will fall from the ceiling. If you honk your car horn out in the streets you will get a traffic ticket in your post tomorrow. If you e-mail your friend a file made through an illegal software Big Brother will be knocking on your door in the morning. Surveillance in Burma wasn't even that bad!
In many places, resistance is futile (you will be assimilated). So yes, artists can provide new insights and new forms of resistance in these situations, insofar as they take great effort in understanding how the system works, and that their works enable others to understand how the system works too, and not just be auto-therapeutic visual statements made at the expense of the public.
Now there is renewed artistic interest and activity in the field of nanoscience. The Institute for Soldier Nanotechnology at the MIT is doing groundbreaking work in this field, and artists are encouraged to "play" with these research. Several years ago, biotechnology started to become a very active field of play for artists. The extent of scientific research in this field is now so enormous that artists will find the limitless possibilities almost tyrannical. Imagine the use of living organisms for detection and identification: from land mines to infected water to people of specific racial types.
One field that the US military and its allies do not seem to have enough research on is network-centric warfare, now broadly and safely called "network science". What the military needs is a grasp on the rules of network beahvior, a formalization behind diverse systems that exhibit group behavior. I can imagine how important the contribution of social networks such as Facebook and Friendster are in this field. Imagine that - 60 million people, 60 million free guinea pigs for your research.
A very sensitive artist (and scientist) knows that his/her work is a double-bladed sword, it will cut both ways. How I "play" with GPS or nano-technology or bio-technology or complex networks will inevitably promote these mediums/technologies to levels that I may personally despise. When that happens, the artist (as surely the scientist) should be aware and responsible for the outcomes.
I had a colleague, whose father was dying of cancer, cursing science for spending so much time and resource in the invention of such things like Viagra.
Much worse, I heard that the American Cancer Society has "copyrighted" the word "Cancer" such that individuals (who are often cancer survivors) who wished to help others by campaigning, making wigs, etc., are being asked to cease and desist from their activities, and not use the word "Cancer".
It appears that if something does not link to established industry profit or the war effort, including truly creative and responsible work by artists, then it must be illegal, uninteresting or "terrorism."
