Is Big Brother watching?

Another of the "are we living in 1984?" posts.  Since the last 2 posts argued in favor, here's a student who argued against us living in an Orwellian present.

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In 2013, intelligence contractor Edward Snowden released a series of classified documents from the National Security Administration (NSA) to the Guardian, who exposed it to the public. These documents detailed the level of access the agency had to someone’s communications both online and over the phone. Initial outrage has transitioned into continued suspicion and skepticism, leaving people to wonder if our society has quietly transitioned into the authoritarian state that was the setting for the classic novel 1984. I don’t believe our society is anywhere close to resembling that of Winston Smith’s world, and I blame a misunderstanding of the government programs for this common comparison.

Image from Wikiquote

The phrase Big Brother has found itself embedded in our culture, most often referring to some entity engaged in observation of some person or group. This phrase first appeared sixty-seven years ago in George Orwell’s 1984.

In 1949 (the year the book was published), Death of a Salesman was performed for the first time and the new nation of Israel was admitted to the United Nations. Our great-grandparents were raising families in a world that wouldn’t have been able to comprehend the concept of a personal computer, let alone the Internet, email, or Facebook.

However, Orwell’s classic served as a warning against an oppressive, totalitarian government. This warning was no where near unneeded or unwarranted. Orwell’s generation had recently seen the fall of Nazi Germany, and freedom was at the forefront of peoples’ minds. When you consider a few characteristics of Orwell’s society, it is easy to see that we are not living in anything close to it.

In 1984, the ruling authority, known as The Party, exerted complete control over the lives of the people. One of the government’s most shocking practices is their control over the minds of the people. The goal of The Party’s methods is to completely break down independent thought in order to influence thoughts and actions. Through constant exposure to propaganda and brainwashing, The Party is able to take away a person’s ability to think for themselves, and directs societal frustration towards “enemies” created by the party. Unless my mind has already been taken over, I don’t believe any such program exists in our country. Americans pride themselves on being able to say and do as they please and think whatever they want, so state-led mind control efforts would be opposed before they got anywhere near 1984 levels.

While I believe outrage over the NSA’s access to personal correspondence and online activities wasn’t completely unwarranted, I do believe it was misunderstood. The methods outlined in the Snowden leak were not intended to spy on all U.S. citizens, but only those communicating with foreigners under suspicion of being a threat to national security. In fact, according to a senior NSA official, the agency is prohibited by law from targeting any U.S. citizen or any person located within the United States. This is in accordance to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. According to Snowden, these intelligence workers do have access to private pictures, messages, and emails, but these are violations of ethics and not the norm. In 1984, the government’s intelligence gathering is targeting its own citizens. This isn’t the case in the United States.

I hope that we never get to a point where our society resembles anything like the one in 1984. Nothing is impossible, however, but we are a long way from anything like that today.

Works Cited

• Liu, Edward, and Nsa Prism Program Taps In To User Data Of Apple, Google And Others | World News | The Guardian. NSA Prism Program Taps in to User Data of Apple, Google and Others | World News | The Guardian (n.d.): n. pag. Congresssional Research Service. 13 Apr. 2016. Web. 8 July 2016. 
• Orwell, George. 1984. New York: New American Library, 1955. Print. 
• Rusbridger, Alan, and Ewen MacAskill. "Edward Snowden Interview - the Edited Transcript." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 18 July 2014. Web. 08 July 2016. 
• Snowden, Edward. "Surveillance Programs." Courage Snowden. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 July 2016.