Final+Draft

= = The Decision

"The average man does not want to be free. He simply wants to be safe." The United States government has imposed an extreme sense of insecurity throughout the country. Invasive measures have been taken in airport security to the point of [|full body scans]. People believe that technological advances mean advances in security, which in many cases is false. The airports may have incredibly high-tech machinery, but the chances of a bomb on the plane are still present. To try to fix this, the government creates more and more rules that ultimately impose more on our rights. There is a decision to be made: does the importance of safety trump the importance of rights? In the book //1984// by George Orwell, Winston (the main character in //1984//) lives his boring life in a communistic society where everything you think, do, or say is monitored by the government. The despised [|telescreens] in everyone’s home make it impossible for anyone “living” there to express their true emotions. The miserable combination between a completely power hungry government and its invasive technology cause Winston to revolt. In the book //Little Brother// by Cory Doctorow, Marcus, a seventeen year old high school student, is a rebel in techno-geek society. A serious computer game constitutes a reason to ditch school, and hacking the school’s computer system is a hobby. One day a terrorist bomber destroys the Bay Bridge in his home town of San Francisco, which changes his world completely. Marcus becomes a captive in the hands of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) where he is tortured and interrogated vigorously. Marcus is forced to use his technological brilliance to take down the paranoid but prominent governmental agency that is monitoring and controlling his life. The gap between rights and safety continues to decrease. And in //Little Brother// and 1984 it is clear that as the governments increase their security measures, a technological presence becomes more abundant and the amount of individual privacy decreases A dangerous situation erupts in the home location of the main characters in both //Little Brother// and //1984//. When a threatening circumstance occurs, the government feels obligated to increase security in order to maintain a feeling of safety among the citizens and also to detain any suspicious character who could be anti government. When security increases, the amount of technology increases, and unfortunately, when security and technology increase, the privacy of the individual does the opposite. The blowing up of the Bay Bridge in Cory Doctorow's //Little Brother// gave the DHS a legitimate reason to enforce the extreme security measures that they used. "There were eyes out there, eyes and ears, and they were watching me. [|Surveilling] me" (Doctorow 84).The government in //Little Brother// planted a bug in Marcus's laptop, enabling them to track every time Marcus turns on his laptop, every web site he visits, and every word he types. "'They had information about where I'd been, places that didn't have a toll plaza. They'd been polling my pass just on the streets, at random.'" (Doctorow 133). Not only does the government in //Little Brother// have the power and technology to bug computers, but they have the even more advanced ability to track everyone in the city -- where they have been and where they are going. The DHS’s main goal was to make certain that there were no more terrorists in the city. They didn’t care whose life they invaded. In George Orwell’s //1984//, Winston’s nation of Oceania is warring against the nation of Eurasia. This war gives the government of Oceania a reason to observe everyone that lives there, all day, every day. "The thought police would get him just the same. He had committed--would have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper--the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you." (Orwell 23). Big Brother (the -government thoughts, that person would be arrested. "It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself--anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face...; was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime..." (Orwell 54). They had machines called telescreens that watched Winston and everyone else, all the time. Just like in //Little Brother//, tgovernment in 1984) was so technologically advanced that it had the ability to inspect the people’s thoughts. If the thought police had a skeptical feeling that there were antihe government claims that the reason for the massive amount of security is for their safety, but really it is to protect their city or nation as a whole from people who are against them. And it seems that the only way for the government to feel secure is to completely infringe on the rights and the privacy of the people.

An increase in security leads to an increase in technology, which leads to a decrease in privacy and individual rights. Is there any way to stop this cycle before it starts to get worse? What does it take to stop or challenge this cycle? The book //Little Brother// illustrates what is needed to defy this sequence. Marcus is a seventeen year old high school student who displays that courage and intelligence are the things needed to challenge the vicious series. Marcus is ridiculed for the commotion he causes in the city, when all he is really doing is trying to help. Marcus uses his Xnet account to encourage other citizens to join the fight against the government by jamming. They classify Marcus as a terrorist for trying to wreck the DHS’s security. “’They say they don’t have a name. I’ve got one for them. Let’s call them Cal Qaeda. They do the terrorists’ work on the home front’” (Doctorow 241). When will people step back and look at the big picture? Why is it that Marcus is the one person standing up for his rights? In //1984// Winston finally enters the higher rankings of the government and is sworn to secrecy. When he tells other people about where he is, Winston loses everything. "Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty and then we shall fill you with ourselves" (Orwell). Why would a person get so confident in something so dangerous? If Winston wouldn’t have exposed his secret, would life have been better for everyone? Winston didn’t have the composure that Marcs had; Winston wasn’t smart about what he was doing. That’s why Marcus succeeded and Winston failed.

Marcus and Winston both live in a world where there is no such thing as privacy and where the government is willing to go to extreme lengths to obtain security. The government uses their [|technological]advancements to interfere with the lives of thousands of people without a second thought. Our world right now is on a fast track of technological improvements. We already have invasive searching in our airports and it may only be a matter of time before our whole world is monitored. [|Wal-Mart] already has tracking devices in their clothing and other products. The U.S. isn’t on the path to communism, like in //1984//, but the nation is capable of falling into a world similar to Marcus’s. The government needs to realize that the most important thing is protecting people’s rights while keeping them safe. Privacy is just as important as security. And until the government can figure out a balance between security and privacy, a downward spiral will continue.

The increase of security and technology go hand-in-hand. When these two things increase, individual rights and privacy decrease. People don’t realize the power our government and its technology has. To most people, technology is only used to communicate with our friends and listen to music, when really it has the ability to control our lives.

Works Cited Beschizza, Rob. "Does The Technology of Orwell's 1984 Really Exist?" //Wired.com//. Wider, 5 Feb. 2008. Web. 21 Feb. 2010. .// // Doctorow, Cory. //Little Brother//. New York, NY: TOR Teen, 2008. Print.// // "Glenn Beck: Cars.gov allows government to takeover your computer." //Youtube//. Youtube. Web. 24 Feb. 2010. .// // Grimes, Brad. "Will Wal-Mart Track You?" //Pcworld.com//. PCWorld, 10 Mar. 2004. Web. 21 Feb. 2010. .// // Nakashima, Ellen. "Bush Order Expands Network Monitoring." //The Washington Post.com//. The Washington Post, 26 Jan. 2008. Web. 21 Feb. 2010. .// // "New Airport Body Scans Reveal All." //Fox News.com//. Fox News, 3 Apr. 2009. Web. 21 Feb. 2010. .// // Orwell, George. //1984//. New York NY: New American Library. Print.