Year of Consent, Kendall Foster Crossen, Dell Publishing, 1954

America in 1990 is a land of 24-hour surveillance. Cameras are everywhere, recording everything. It all gets sent to a giant supercomputer, nicknamed Herbie, that takes up 10 floors of a Washington office building. Any dissent, or even individuality, leads to a visit by the Clinic Squad (the police) and mandated "treatment," usually involving a lobotomy.

The social engineers have taken over America. The vast majority of citizens, whose "job" is to be consumers, are guided by massive amounts of propaganda in all media. The entire Western Hemisphere has been annexed, so America now consists of 74 states. The social engineers put forward candidates for President who will appeal to the greatest number of voters. Candidates for US Senate are chosen by the state Party (there is now one political party). Members of the House are employees of major companies. The only problem with this is a small and secret resistance called the Uns, which stands for United Nations, now headquartered in Australia. A major propaganda campaign is planned to equate the Uns with communists, who have been pretty well eradicated from America.

Garrett Leeds is a middle-level employee in Security and Consent, the government "surveillance department." He is also a senior member of the Uns, whose hero is Henry David Thoreau. Any attempt to disrupt the propaganda campaign will result in his exposure as the enemy. How can he stay one step ahead of the government, while preparing for a big push by the Uns to bring down the whole social engineering system? What can anyone do about a supercomputer that knows a person better than they know themselves, and can very accurately predict their future actions?

This book is surprisingly good, and, if you can find a copy, very much worth reading. In these days of growing surveillance and already large amounts of propaganda in the media, this novel is also pretty prophetic. ( )