The first entry in The Blasted Tree's non-fiction initiative, Kyle Flemmer's letter On State Surveillance, written October 25th, 2014, is part of an ongoing dialogue about authoritarian systems of control and how they relate to the current political landscape in Canada. This letter responds to a friend's interest in the ideas raised by George Orwell's classic novel, 1984, and to the public lecture on state surveillance by Glenn Greenwald offered at Concordia University, October 24th.