[NMEwithin]

Parsons unlike Syms does not display the slightest gleam of intelligence, his line is stolid obedience and Winston marks him out as one of the survivors. He collects some money from Winston as a subscription to conducting Hate Week in their building and proceeds to boast about the “achievements” of his horrible children. They had tracked a man down and handed him over to the thought police as a traitor on the sole ground that he was wearing strange looking shoes and had set fire to a woman’s clothes because she wrapped a parcel in a poster of big Brother. Finally, they had been eavesdropping at their parent’s bedroom door with a listening device to see if any thoughtcrime remarks were made. All of these are presented by Parsons as exploits of which he is very proud!

-- George Orwell "1984"

[villagerjoel]

I sent this in:

The Thought Police (thinkpol in Newspeak) are the secret police of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four whose job it is to uncover and punish thoughtcrime. The Thought Police use psychologyand omnipresent surveillance to find and eliminate members of society who are capable of the mere thought of challenging ruling authority.[2]

The Thought Police of Orwell and their pursuit of thoughtcrime were based on the methods used by the totalitarian states and competing ideologies of the 20th century. It also had much to do with, as Orwell called it, the “power of facing unpleasant facts,” and his willingness to criticize prevailing ideas which brought him into conflict with others and their “smelly little orthodoxies.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughtcrime