Without a second thought, I dialed my colleague. It was after midnight, free minutes were on (yes, those soon to disappear "morals corrupters"), I didn't think much of the hour.

"Ke? Ke?" The startled voice on the other end brought to mind the Bangla slang dhorfor.

"It's me, Naeem, sorry, ghum theke jagalam?"

"No, it's OK, just not expecting a call at this hour!"

"Listen, it's late, I just have a quick question. There is some news from Germany and we have to make a decision."

He quickly interrupted, "Let's talk about it in person, kalke hobe."

"But we have to give them a decision quickly, let me just explain..."

"Na, na, kalke kotha hobe..."

"But ..."

"Etho bujhai bolthe hobe naki? Not on the phone!" He practically growled the last phrase.

I understood, and quietly said my goodbyes and hung up. We made plans to meet later in the week, no harm done.

January 2006. It has been only a few days since the government approved the amendment to the Telecommunications Act to allow spying on phone calls and e-mails. But people are already getting adjusted to the new realities. Instead of protesting, citizens are just cooperating. Anything to get along, move on in life, as long as the business is fine, we are all good. The phone has now become a liability. You never know what phrase can be misinterpreted. Next thing you know, there will be a knock on your door. Even harmless, apolitical conversations like deciding a screening venue in Germany has been offloaded. Not safe for public consumption.

"This is nothing new," says an activist friend, "tiktiki have always been listening to us. This just makes it legal, means they can bring phone transcripts to court."

Tiktiki.

I remember being ten and first reading that word in a Kiriti Ray detective novel. I found the whole book to be in dath-bhanga Bangla (I was ten!), how did my parents enjoy this so much? I preferred Satyajit Ray's Feluda with a modernist flair. Anyway, on page 5 I came across the sentence: "Tiktiki piche legeche" and asked my mother for an explanation.

Tiktiki was a lizard but also a spy. How exciting. Did he have a tail, did it grow back if you chopped it off?

Who knew tiktiki would become a source for fear?

Remember 1970s Dhaka, when Lal Bahini and Rokkhi Bahini prowled the streets, trying to flush out the underground cadres of Gono Bahini and Sharbahara Party. Spies and informants were everywhere, neighbours reported each other to settle scores -- kidnapping by "security" forces and "crossfire" executions were the norm. How little things have changed in thirty years! Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) in 2006 looks a lot like Rokkhi Bahini in 1974. Today, when I see photographs of arrested JMB militants, surrounded by fierce looking Rab men in sunglasses, bandannas, black clothes, and machine guns, I don't know who I should be more afraid of. Will JMB blow me up when I am shopping in Newmarket, or will Rab kill me in crossfire because of mistaken identity, or a misinterpreted phone call?

Along with Rab enforcers, we have the dreaded spies, listening to every conversation in our ether. Looking for evidence of terror plots they say, but how many of those recorded conversations will be used to harass, intimidate, and wreck lives?

When the government's surveillance move first started, I wrote four editorials on the subject. In one of the earlier pieces, I put in a hopeful appeal that not just citizens, but also cell phone companies would resist these new surveillance laws. A friend who is a cell phone entrepreneur read the draft and said: "Yes, but governments that can shut down private television company can do anything to cell phone companies. All they have to do is give a dhomok and threaten to cancel their license."

But surely, I thought, the companies would fight back. They would use their economic might to protest surveillance laws that are bad for human rights and business? Elsewhere in the world, many battles are brewing between spies and business. Recently, Google refused to comply with federal requests for user data, but Microsoft and Yahoo agreed. An hour after reading that news item, I got a mass e-mail from my friend Sujani -- she was switching her yahoo e-mail to google in protest. People power in action! But Google doesn't get off the hook either. In China, Google agreed to authority's demands for censoring websites. In protest, activist groups have launched a Valentine's Day: "No Luv 4 Google" program which urges consumers to boycott Google.

Do we trust our government (BNP or AL) to do the right thing when it comes to surveillance? Will they use this power to harass politicians, silence activists and blackmail ordinary citizens? Will they push a bureaucratic, political and moral agenda under the guise of law enforcement? What does our past history tell us?

People are taking no chances anyway. Like my friend the other night, there are now abrupt conversations, hushed tones, scared silences. Best not to say anything, even innocent conversations can be twisted around.

After a 35-year journey as an independent country, is this what it has come down to? To return to a condition where we have fewer rights than in those first horrific years after independence?

I thought again of my friend. Bujhai bolthe hobe naki? People seem to be bent over in fear. As if bringing your body closer and closer to the ground will give you armour to protect from the tyranny of governments.

There are two choices in our coming future. Keep giving in (but whatever you give will never be enough). Or speak up to defend your own rights, starting with the surveillance laws.

Which side will you be on?

Naeem Mohaiemen is director of DisappearedInAmerica.org, an arts collective that looks at post-9/11 civil liberties and surveillance.