Little+Brother+and+1984

Government, Friend or Foe? Will there ever be the perfect balance between rights and protection, or will there always be controversy? In "1984" written by George Orwell the book follows a corrupt government who uses technology to stalk their citizens rather than for good. Winston, a troubled man living in an awful system tries to decipher the mystery that is the government. The technologies presented in the book are used to violate all privacy, even one's own thoughts. In Cory Doctorow's "Little Brother" it shows a teen who stands up for what he believes in using the so-called private "XNet" to motivate the entire Bay Area to challenge the government. After being kidnapped by his own government, Marcus, or better known on the XNet as "M1K3Y" takes to resourceful technology to motivate his age group to sand against the grain, standing up for their rights and freedoms. The books show that there is a delicate balance between rights vs. protection, and we need to use common sense and know-how in order to balance the two in our daily life.

The United States is the most targeted country in the world when it comes to terrorist groups, and the government wants to do its best to protect its people. Every day the government passes new laws and bills, some more influential that others. Recently, the government contemplated a law entitled [|SOPA], an act that the government claimed was meant to stop online piracy and protect copyright. In doing so, it would remove all copyrighted information, games, or video from the web. If a newspaper were to publish an article and distribute it to the local citizens, it could not be posted online due to copyright infringement. Even if it was the newspapers own website, it could not be posted. This sparked a ton of debate because most social media sites, file sharing sites, and many other online operations would be tarnished. ("SOPA") The government was truly trying to stop copyright and piracy, but did they take it too far? In "Little Brother" this is displayed thoroughly throughout the book. "Dad got home late that night. Very late. Three hours late. Why? Because he had been pulled over, searched, and questioned. Then it happen again. Twice!" (Doctorow 132). During this point in the story, the DHS is worried about another terrorist attack, and can stop anyone they want. They had the right to search anyone they wanted, just because they seemed suspicious. The DHS was just trying to keep the people safe, but how far are citizens willing to go in order to keep their safety? One deserves to drive home without getting stopped and searched, just because some cop or officer thought something might be up. In "1984 " there is a much more extreme form of government, where th e people have almost no rights at all. "To keep your face expressionless was not difficult, and even your breathing could be controlled, with an effort: but you could not control the beating of your heart, and the telescreen was quite delicate enough to pick it up" (Orwell 167). A telescreen is installed in everyone's living space to spy on the citizens, which is a complete abomination considering the citizens have no privacy. To have to control even your facial expressions at all times is nearly impossible, let alone breathing and heart rate. How close are we to that today? What we know is that programs like TSA, DHS, and EPA use sensors that were recently developed to be able to monitor brain waves. If one has nervous or anxious brain waves, they can be monitored by the officials to make sure they don't stay for too long. Any text being received or being sent out of the airport can be intercepted and read. Drones and satellites can look into your house and listen to conversations, find your weapons, and watch you. The government is ever present in our lives even when we don't know it. Whether it is the government being able to remove anything they want off the internet through SOPA, using a telescreen to monitor your thoughts and heartbeat, stopping a car twice for no good reason, or being [|monitored by cameras] at all hours of the day, our rights are violated. It's a violation of our rights, but when is the line drawn? Drug dealers, terrorists, and killers are targeted and taken out by these technologies. Rights are necessary, but so is the protection of U.S citizens. Perfect harmony between rights and freedoms is hard to accomplish due to the number of human beings targeted and attacked in the U.S every day. 99.97% of people who live in the United States will not be injured, let alone killed. That means only 0.03% of the people will be hurt more severely than a broken finger. [|308,745,538] people abide in America, which means that 9.24 million people a day will be hurt or killed by a cause other than natural death. The number seems low compared to the whole population, but really that's somewhat large. The reason that over nine million people are struck by unwanted impairments is because there are a slot of [|stupid people] out there, a lot of crazy people out there, and a lot of innocent people are out there. ("FASTSTATS") People hate each other, we live in a world of narcissists who struggle to see the bigger picture. Through new technologies we save many of these deaths and other complications from happening. In Little Brother, the country takes a huge blow to the side when the Bay Bridge located in San Francisco blows up. "Darryl shook my arm and pointed over the buildings and we saw it then: a huge black cloud rising from the northeast, from the direction of the Bay" (Doctorow 38). Over three thousand lives were lost that day in the story due to a lack of security on the bay bridge. Obviously, innocent lives being lost is never something to take lightly. The DHS then detains thousands of citizens, and goes to extreme precautions in order to stop terrorism, even tracking train records. In "1984" they live in a world where even where there aren't any telescreens, it doesn't mean one has escaped. "In general you could not assume you were much safer in the country than in London. There was no telescreens, of course, but there was always the danger of concealed microphones by which your voice could be picked and monitored; besides, it was not easy to make a journey by yourself without attracting attention" (Orwell 117). In the world that these people live in nothing goes unnoticed by the inner party, which makes it so that a terrorist attack is not anywhere near possible. But, at the same time they live in an awful world where nothing is fun and nothing is worth living for. What we don't know is where do we find perfect harmony between our freedom, and out protection. How do we make it so that we don't have 9.24 million broken bones, concussions, and [|deaths] every day? The symmetry is difficult to construct, seemingly impossible.

The line is constantly moving, at times it can be more towards the rights side, but at other times it can lean more towards the protection side. What the country needs to do is find a permanent line.The rights we have in the U.S are unparalleled to any other nation in the world, therefore once we start leaning towards the rest of the world techniques, we think we are being cheated. A sample group in Iowa during November of 2010, 1,000 citizens was surveyed and asked if they felt like they still had all the rights they did when the founding fathers wrote our Constitution. Of the group, 794 of the group said that no, we no longer had all the freedoms and rights that we once had. Of the 794 people who said their rights were violated, 344 of them could name a specific right that was violated. This country is so fed up with all the problems, but really no one knows where the flaws are. To think that only 43% of the citizens complaining know what is being taken away from us is really scary, considering people are causing a bunch of commotion and discussion that they can't back up. ("FASTSTATS") "'Wrong,' she said. 'The proper response to police misconduct is disciplinary action against the police, not punishing all of society for one cop's mistake'" (Doctorow 297). Instead of listening to Marcus' opinion, she instead dismisses it telling him that he wrong and what is right. She has no argument behind it, she just goes with what the government and her training tells her is the answer and states it. This is a common recurrence in our world, people know something is wrong, but they don't know what. "WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH" (Orwell 6). This is an example not to show that it is the people's fault, but a warning as to what the society we now live in is possibly heading to. When people do not understand the problems, there is no way to fight them but to rather complain about how bad everything is. The population needs to be challenged as to what is wrong, and what they can do to fix it. It is easy to say the economy is bad, but what is bad about it? It is easy to say that we are heavily under surveillance by our government through technology and such, but what are they doing? What can we challenge them on? The government is going to keep trying to keep us safe, therefore we will most likely get more and more frustrated. In 20 years, our world will be made of technology, we will walk in field of glass and touchscreens.our world will be run through our phones. We need to understand the technology and how to keep it secure and safe. The world is changing, we are the ones that need to adjust, not the technology.

The books show that it is difficult to make everyone happy with rights vs. protection, but it is up to us to keep the government in balance. Every day we are heavily watched by our government, which catches many bad people, but at times wrongly accuses innocent civilians. People are hurt every day in our country from sources rather than natural causes, but every day the people in the United States government to save as many of those casualties as they can. The world is beginning to evolve around the use of technology, heck, many small businesses are run through one[| smart phone]. The people need to stop blaming the government for surveillance and acting like everyone in the government hates us, because really they are just trying to save lives. As much as we get upset with rights vs. protection, when problems like 9/11 and other terrorist acts happen its on the [|governments resume], not the people's. First off, we need to start seeing where the government is coming from and acting on that, rather than just complaining about how bad Bush was, or how bad Obama is, because it is not their fault they want to keep people safe. Instead of sitting on our butts and talking about what terrifies us about our government, lets go make a change. Get up and go learn learn about the importance of safety, and how often the greatest nation in the world, the U.S, is targeted. If we don't like what the government is doing, how about we protest, and stand up for whats right? We can control the government through democracy, therefore we can't blame them for our problems. The countries and worlds problems are the people's fault, because ultimately we are in control. Technology is helping us medically, socially, and politically. We should appreciate it, because one day, it is all going to come together. One day, we will live in perfect harmony with rights vs. protection. But it's up to us to find the medium, not the government.

Work Cited Doctorowe, Cory. //Little Brother.// New York; Tom Doherty Associates, 2008. Print.

Orwell, George. //1984.// Madrid; J.A Mestas, 2003. Print.

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<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px;">"Mueller." Cartoon. Print.