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Saša Milivojev is a famous writer, poet, journalist columnist and political analyst... One of the most read columnists in Serbia, he is the author of five books, and numerous columns published in various daily newspapers. He is the author of the novel „The Boy from the Yellow House“ and of political speeches. His work has been translated into around twenty languages across the world.

 

Saša Milivojev

SPY NETWORK

A column on total transparency and the psychopathology of contemporary normality, 07.01.2026.


 “Be careful what you say on the phone when you’re abroad. Everything is Saša Milivojevlistened to. Everything is translated.”

Fine.
Let them listen.
Let them translate.
Let them transcribe, semantically map, emotionally tag, and archive it all on servers without geography and without forgetting. Let my voice become a dataset. Let my accent be flagged as an anomaly. Let irony be classified as a risk signal.

The next time I’m invited to a television show to address the public, I will theatrically remove the battery from my mobile phone. Not because I believe in the effectiveness of that gesture, but because we live in a world where gestures are the last refuge of freedom—technologically meaningless, yet symbolically indispensable.

Today, nothing can be hidden anymore.
Not because we have become sinful, but because concealment itself has been declared a deviation.

The right to privacy was not abolished by decree. It was delegitimized epistemologically. It was proclaimed a relic of the analog psyche, a romantic illusion of previous centuries. Privacy laws exist like museum exhibits: to be displayed, not to be applied.

Once, a spy was a human being. He had a body, a trench coat, a hat, flaws. He had to walk for miles, sweat, hide behind corners, strain his ears, listen—and make mistakes. He was vulnerable. He was finite. Today, the spy has no body. Today, the spy is an ecosystem.

Landline phones were always monitored from central exchanges. That was never a secret, but a tacit social contract. Public spaces are covered by cameras. Internet traffic is filtered through providers and satellite nodes. Mobile phones are located via transmitters. Voices are extracted by laser from window glass. Electromagnetic emissions from monitors are captured and reconstructed into images. Water pipes become passive sonar systems. Software separates voices. A building is monitored. A block is monitored. A city is monitored.

But that is only the mechanical foundation—the skeleton.

Walls have grown thin. Windows have become traitors. Light bulbs flicker as if sending signals. Light is no longer neutral—it pulses like the nervous system of a city.

Smart refrigerators record what you eat and when. If you buy too much beer, the system knows you’re planning a gathering. Smartwatches measure pulse, location, heart rate variability, stress levels. If you’re anxious, the system knows it before you do. Smart cars with GPS, microphones, and cameras know where you’ve been, how fast you drove, whether you were singing or silent.

Smart trash containers analyze waste. Your garbage is not refuse—it is a biographical document. Habits, addictions, health, mood changes. Waste is an autobiography without style.

Smart speakers do not “wait for a command.” They listen constantly. If you thought you were alone in the room, you weren’t. You were simply without witnesses of flesh and blood.

ATMs don’t just record faces. They record the rhythm of PIN entry—the biometrics of habit, nervousness, hesitation. Satellites do not observe the Earth; they read details. Drones hover over backyards and transmit data to command centers. Insect drones—prototype mechanical mosquitoes and flies—listen from immediate proximity.

Acoustic lasers turn apartments into sound boxes.
Private space becomes evidentiary material.

Once, pigeons carried letters. Today, micro-cameras and GPS units are mounted on them. If a bird keeps following you, it may not be curious. Ravens and falcons with miniature cameras circle rooftops. The sky is no longer metaphysical—it is operational.

Satellites in orbit can see the color of your jacket.

Mosquito-shaped drones land on your arm and record conversations. Everything around you has become a potential spy: the light bulb, the refrigerator, the television, the car, the trash container. Everything records. Everything remembers. Everything transmits.

This is not your paranoia.
Paranoia presupposes irrational fear.
This is your rational anxiety within a perfectly logical system.

The neighbor who shows excessive interest in your habits may not be a neighbor at all, but an extended arm of the system. A barking dog may be reacting to an ultrasonic signal. A child flying a drone in the park may be unknowingly recording half the neighborhood. Even silence is no longer safe. Silence vibrates. Vibrations are words being translated.

The elevator you stand in may have a microphone. A billboard may have a camera measuring gaze duration. A bank card may record not only purchases, but the manner of withdrawal. The mirror in a hotel room may conceal a camera behind the glass. The television that lulls you to sleep may be recording your movements.

 

Smart bulbs flicker like Morse code. Smart thermostats know when you’re home. Smart beds record restless sleep. Smart toothbrushes transmit health data. Smart toys record children’s voices. Smart elevators know which floor you go to. Smart cards log every entry and exit. Smart algorithms record every smile.

And while you laugh, computer systems do not interpret emotions—they measure patterns of muscle contraction and classify them into statistical categories of behavior.

Your shoes are spies. Gait is biometrics. Floors record vibrations. Elevators remember weight. Staircases remember hesitation. If you ran, the system knows you were fleeing. If you dragged your feet, the system knows you were exhausted.

Your eyes are spies. Pupil diameter is measured, physiological correlates of fear are quantified, and gaze patterns are algorithmically analyzed. Every twitch of the eye becomes data.

Your hands are spies. Every screen touch, every nervous movement, every clenched fist—everything is archived. Your hands are an archive.

Your thoughts are spies. Electromagnetic brain signals can be recorded. Planning is detected. Vulnerability is mapped. Irony is recognized.

Your memories are spies. Photographs are not images—they are metadata. Your past is a catalog. And now, even what you never recorded is being logged: the system infers, supplements, connects. Memory is rewritten. Biography is written in advance.

Your dreams are spies. The system records restlessness, smiles, fear. But now it also records dreams you never dreamed. The subconscious is being colonized.

Your shadows are spies. They no longer follow the body—they precede it. The shadow knows where you’re going before you do. The shadow is an agent.

Your smells are spies. The body’s chemical signature forms a biography. Dietary patterns are algorithmically analyzed. Fluid intake is statistically tracked. Blood functions as an archive of biological data. Bones bear traces of load and strain. Skin acts as an interface between the body and the system. Hair is a DNA record. Fingernails are continuous health reports.

Even when you are silent—you produce data.

This is not a world in which you are observed.
This is a world in which you are interpreted.

The algorithm already knows what you will think tomorrow. Not because you are predictable, but because the future has been reduced to probability. The greatest illusion of this system is not that it does not observe you—but that you are not important enough to be tracked.

That is precisely why you are.