How Has Technology Changed Over The Years?

Everyone has always wondered if people were ever watching them. Our technology today is capable to eavesdrop in on anyone’s conversations even if their phones are turned off. In the novel, “1984”, the party INGSOC uses telescreens to watch over the people and always know what they are up to. This denies the people’s rights and privileges to go about their business as they please. The technology we have today is almost exact to what big brother uses in George Orwell’s novel by taking over the public and private parts of our lives.

5 Ways You Give The Government Control” written by Kenneth Coats shows how the devices we use daily slowly take over individuals lives. Coats states, “Today, most people in the United States carry a mobile phone that accompanies them wherever they go. We use them for everything...This essentially makes them the perfect tracking and bugging devices”. Although electronic devices are known to be safe, they allow outside people to figure out individuals personal life. Due to the need for devices such as cell phones, each individual has a high chance of being socially stalked once in their lifetime. Coats then states, “Not only do intelligence agencies gather information via mobile companies, but… your phone can be hacked using spyware. Even if your phone is turned off, it can be remotely accessed to recorded conversations and take photographs”. This issue causes a panic due to the wide spread of inappropriate pictures and private conversations in one's life. Even though technology is viewed as a privileged, it is also taking away people's lives without their

Though the consequences of citizen’s actions through technology today are not as severe or are non punishable, they do not take the government’s surveillance as seriously as the citizens of Oceania did in 1984. One NSA system can reach about 75% of all US Internet traffic, communications by foreigners and Americans (Gorman n. pag.). The US government's defense to surveillance claims is that the justification is National Security (Calamur n. pag.)., and this may be true, but the question of the freedom to privacy ratio, as a free nation, is still undecided. One way surveillance is now even more accessible is due to Google Glass. "With Google Glass, nobody's pointing a camera... phone. You no longer know if you're being filmed... an unspoken social rule is being violated" (Brown 42). and gives the government the ability to see from the point of view of anyone. With most every person you meet having quick access to some sort of recordable technology, it is easy to have your actions recorded or documented without your knowledge. The information can be easily spread around the world without your knowing or permission with just a simple touch. As said before, “.....an unspoken social rule is being violated” (Brown 42), taking away the sense of privacy and security felt by many Americans. Another form of surveillance, used by specifically the NYPD, is the use of undercover cops. Since The Occupy Wall Street

A dramatic transformation in the advancement of technology has continued to evolve since the 1950’s. As computers started out, they were very expensive to make, they were slow and the computers were very basic. Now in days people can carry computers in their backpack but in the 90s, the computers would take up a whole room. The reason their computers were so large was because they required magnetic drums to store memory for the computer and vacuum tubes as switches and amplifiers. Today, these devices are built into our computers and other time they made them more compact. Also, as time went on, we received faster and more advanced technology. We are still using computers from the 1950s today; they are just highly advanced versions of their

Everyday technology is advancing and has become part of people’s everyday life, from phones, cars, computers, and even the light switches in a room. With all this technology, it would be easy to use it for other things then what they were intended for. For example what if someone wanted to control what another person could do such as sleeping or going places. It would not not be that hard to try and control another human being, or even worse being watched every single moment of everyday for the rest of their life. That idea is not as farfetched as it may seem now with even more phones, computers, televisions and cameras in general. Technology is taking humanity nearer and nearer to world of Big Brother and the worse part is that if they are not careful, Big Brother could raise without any citizen ever knowing.

The government looks at our emails, text messages, listens to our phone calls and other similar communication devices. “The U.S. has led a worldwide effort to limit individual privacy and enhance the capability of its police and intelligence services to eavesdrop on personal conversations. The campaign has had two legal strategies. The first made it mandatory for all digital telephone switches, cellular and satellite phones and all developing communication technologies to build in surveillance capabilities; the second sought to limit the dissemination of software that provides encryption, a technique which allows people to scramble their communications and files to prevent others from reading them” (Solove). How much of this did you know about? Almost all of our current devices already have technology that makes it an easy access for the government to know about all of your conversations.

Technology has changed drastically from the 1970s to now. We have exceeded what most people back then could ever imagine. The technology used in schools, homes, and in public places has evolved into technology that makes the “cutting edge” technology of the 70s look very simple. Things such as the personal computer, the cell phone, electronic games, TVs, and even watches have changed completely. The ways that they have exceeded expectations is truly unbelievable.

In the brainwashed society of Oceania in 1984, by George Orwell, led by a totalitarian government in the name of a leader known as Big Brother, citizens are placed under constant surveillance from the government, preventing them from having individuality and freedom of thought. Although written in a fictional setting, the book strikes analogous similarities to the United States in today’s world. Due to a growth in surveillance, personal information and privacy are being intervened, however, not violated. While technological advances are increasing and crimes such as hacking and terrorism are becoming more prominent in society, government surveillance is becoming largely needed to ensure the protection

Technology has changed remarkably over the last one hundred years. First, the way that we use books has changed. Another way is the way we play games. The way we communicate with each other has changed drastically over the last century as well. At this rate, with technology growing every day, we can see the “new” technology that we have right now is already being replaced with something else that is “new.”

Technology has become more accessible to the point it has become easier for government to watch everyone's move. In this generation technology takes over everyone's daily life, where people wakes up and the first thing is look at is the phone. A phone there are many things on it, like text, pictures and videos. Phones can do many things, but there is a possibility where the government can tap into a phone and look through it. The government can watch everyone’s: text, history, private info, and pictures. Government has no right to looking through people’s personal info because it violates Fourth amendment, Blackmail, and Creates fear.

Today we are watched by our government through our technology. Such as, smartphones and laptops. For example, “We are able to see what 100,000,000 people are doing,...”(DesMarais,2012). This reveals how the book “1984” and present day have similar schemes.

Government surveillance in the past was not a big threat due to the limitations on technology; however, in the current day, it has become an immense power for the government. Taylor, author of a book on Electronic Surveillance supports, "A generation ago, when records were tucked away on paper in manila folders, there was some assurance that such information wouldn 't be spread everywhere. Now, however, our life stories are available at the push of a button" (Taylor 111). With more and more Americans logging into social media cites and using text-messaging devices, the more providers of metadata the government has. In her journal “The Virtuous Spy: Privacy as an Ethical Limit”, Anita L. Allen, an expert on privacy law, writes, “Contemporary technologies of data collection make secret, privacy invading surveillance easy and nearly irresistible. For every technology of confidential personal communication…there are one or more counter-technologies of eavesdropping” (Allen 1). Being in the middle of the Digital Age, we have to be much more careful of the kinds of information we put in our digital devices.

How has the U.S. surveillance changed in the past 10 years? Surveillance is defined as a “close kept watch over someone or something.” The use of surveillance has always been there since the days of following someone from their home to work and back, but surveillance and technology have been combined together now. Spying and policing agencies no longer have the need to use of following anyone or listening to their conversations through walls, watching them from distance, and even going through a suspect’s garbage to gather information. The capabilities of government spying are very wide such as computer hacking skills, domestic drone surveillance, and data gathering through cell phone companies. American companies such as Skype, Facebook, Google and many mobile carriers companies reportedly have been turning over user information to government. The important question here is whether spying on the citizens of the United States necessarily a bad thing or not? Also, what can individuals do to protect their privacy from being invaded by their own government? The answer to the question is that our right to our privacy does not exist anymore because everyone is under surveillance and the technology is moving up very fast in this subject and it seems that it is no longer about stopping terrorists, but it is only an excuse to build a surveillance empire.

Trying to avoid a totalitarian, propaganda-based regime like Orwell wrote about, policy-makers still have to find a way to monitor technology and protect national security. The answer is not simple, but the key is finding the right point in the gray area that lies between complete and no privacy. American citizens have a right to privacy. They have the right to do what they choose without the government monitoring their every move. As Henry David Thoreau wrote, “That government is best which governs least.”

In an article called “Liberty vs Safety” it talks about how the Government is hacking into our computers, phones, reading our texts, and listening to our conversations and most importantly invading our privacy. As people we have rights in this article it explains