Privacy In 1984

Today’s society is predicted as living in a world George Orwell envisioned in 1984. The system Orwell invented is compared to what the United States government is capable of doing. Government control of society is an essential subject due to the current mind set of the world today. In 1984, George Orwell represents how Big Brother is compared to today’s government, showing the consequences and dangers of a government with unlimited surveillance power.

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.

As the electronic eyes shrink in size, Big Brother grows even bigger. (Hancock 1995, 1) Cameras can turn into instruments of abuse, even to effectiveness of telescreens that did in Winston and many of his kind. The wired society is a creeping phenomenon because there are no regulations or laws to protect against video surveillance. (Hancock 1995, 2) Our poor character Winston was subject to a harsher type of surveillance than what has been seen, but with no regulation the possibilities are very real that a system that did the work on the people of Big Brother can exist in our society today. George Orwell amazingly portrayed a anti-utopian world in witch everyone was caught up by the strong possibility that there being watched, and if/when they foul up, there next in line to be reconditioned. Even Winston knew the great power of

1984, a novel by George Orwell, represents a dystopian society in which the people of Oceania are surveilled by the government almost all the time and have no freedoms. Today, citizens of the United States and other countries are watched in a similar way. Though different technological and personal ways of keeping watch on society than 1984, today’s government is also able to monitor most aspects of the people’s life. 1984 might be a dystopian society, but today’s condition seems to be moving towards that controlling state, where the citizens are surveilled by the government at all times.

George Orwell’s novel 1984 reflects on the society of dystopian city Airstrip 1 where main character Winston Smith lives. Along with the many other citizens, Winston is controlled by the Inner Party by constantly being monitored via telescreens that keep sight of everybody and their actions. Besides using telescreens the government also easily arrests people in any case of “thoughtcrime” which consists of any thoughts that regard disobedience towards the government. Thoughtcrime and telescreens are two of the several factors that reflect the extreme surveillance in 1984. Orwell uses surveillance as the central theme of the novel to spread his idea that the usage of more extreme surveillance could eventually lead to a totalitarian society. On a less extreme scale, today’s society also has a significant amount of surveillance but many question whether or not more surveillance is necessary. With the many current text sources, it is certain that we need less surveillance in order to keep a stable society that does not take away the individualism of people.

Similar to how telescreens work in 1984, our society has personal information analyzed and recorded by the government. Data collection is a turning more to privacy taken away from citizens. If people are constantly being under surveillance, people start to lose their individuality because people transform into automatons. On (1.5.65) Winston says, "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." This quote explains the significance of privacy, as even the smallest things in society matter. Orwell is foreshadowing the increasingly tighter surveillance on citizens and that affects society today because our society today is becoming more similar to the one portrayed in

In 1984 George Orwell describes how no matter where you go in Oceania there is

In 1984 George Orwell describes how no matter where you go in Oceania there is

The books 1984  by George Orwell and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley are both connected in the way society controls people. Both these books illustrate control over their citizens through government intervention. People are constantly being watched either by telescreens or neighbors in 1984 while there is no privacy in Brave New World at all. In 1984, children are in a league of youth spies and send people to jail because they look suspicious. Brave New World’s children are created to be controlled for the sake of society. Sex is bad in 1984  because it promotes the idea of pleasure or selfish needs while Brave New World embraces sex to promote happiness. 1984  and Brave New World both control the people of society through privacy, sex, and children.

In George Orwell’s 1984, Big Brother uses surveillance to spy on everything from people’s everyday actions to thoughts in their mind’s privacy. The government controls much of the citizens, and this book has left a horrifying image to its readers for the future of government surveillance. As much as it sounds extreme, this could be the near future of Americans if surveillance programs continue to grow. Due to the many findings of Edward Snowden on the flaws of surveillance programs, changes must be made to the NSA Domestic Surveillance Programs.

Imagine living in a world where you could not make your own choices, or be your own person. In the novel 1984, this is exactly what happened. In a place called Oceania where there is no such thing as privacy and personal freedom (Roelofs), the main character Winston Smith, is living a strict life under the demanding party known as Big Brother. Winston decides that he wants his life back to normal and tries to rebel against the Party. Meanwhile, he is thought to be a lunatic because he is living his life how a normal person would, but everyone else is now living under what is thought to be a utopia society. Throughout the book Winston strongly disagrees with the fact that every second he is being keep under surveillance. Though at some points he believes he is being discrete, in reality someone is always watching. In 1984, George Orwell depicts the lack of privacy and loss of individualism which affects the characters and the society as a whole.

The book 1984 depicts a society unimaginable to most; however, a further look shows us that we actually do live in an Orwellian society. Orwell describes a country called Oceania made of multiple continents which is ruled by the dictatorial “Big Brother” who uses different systems like the “thought police” and “telescreens” in order to have full control over the country. Our democratic government, through organizations such as the NSA and NGI, can look through our most private conversations and moments using spyware. Due to the secrecy of the government, citizens in 1984, as well as those in our society, fear the government.

Big Brother is watching (Orwell). The truth is that anyone reading this paper from the internet has the right to know that someone thousands of miles away could very well be watching (Orwell). On top of this shocking fact, a victim would never even know they were being watched. George Orwell knew what he was talking about when he wrote of a society in which all things are monitored by the government and an individual's right to privacy is breached for the sake of peace and safety. Some might even say America is such a society today. The citizens in the USA believe that their government is doing all in its power to protect them, but when do national security measures such as spying and monitoring become

The government in 1984 maintains power by using constant surveillance and suppression of citizens. Unlike the modern era, all citizens know they are being watched and are cautious about their actions. Winston says of the telescreen, the Party’s method of espionage: “Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it [the telescreen], moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as

Surveillance is defined as any form of concentrated attention or observation to personal information for the purposes of influence, management, or control (Lyon, 2009, p.1). While privacy is defined as a state of being free from others attention and from being observed. The two terms together form a contradiction, as they oppose each other and relate to the major inconsistency of equality (everyone being under surveillance) verses freedom (people’s right to privacy), since the enlightenment. Ever since reading George Orwell’s 1984, with ‘Big Brother’, I have been interested in the topic of privacy verses surveillance in terms of fighting crime and preventing terrorism. In my unexamined opinion, it is apparent that it is a continuous issue in