Surveillance and Freedom: 'The Concrete Jungle' and 'Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom'

According to “A Surveillance Society” By William E. Thompson there are camera everywhere, watching everything you do at all times. Cameras are found everywhere and are used by everyone, including the governments of the world who use it the most to track its citizens and potential threats to the safety of their nation. People are more willing to be watched in order to feel safer everywhere they go such as the supermarket to your own workplace. Governments can now look into your email, travel records, credit history and your personal life without your knowledge of them ever doing so, even your neighbors can now easily buy tools to spy on others or to protect themselves from danger; Things such as security cameras

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

A Surveillance Society by Thompson and Hickey is about how public surveillance is everywhere, looking at everything, and is never turned off. First, the PATRIOT Act was passed by Congress shortly after 9/11, and has allowed the government to start watching people. Ever since then the U.S. has increased its use of cameras in public places. Today, just about everywhere businesses and shoppers are, there are cameras. High-tech surveillance devices are more prevalent across populated areas. Corporations, agencies and even individuals monitor social areas with surveillance. With today’s technology, cameras are able to scan images and identify people. Organizations regularly share databases, swapping personal information. Some are opposed

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.

and what they are equipped to do. Some of these devices are able to scan and analyze , what they

“Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves”(Reagan). In the book, 1984, Winston recognizes the power the government has over the citizens of Oceania. The citizens lack privacy from the government. George Orwell warns society about a government with total control in 1984. Based on Dana Hawkin’s article, “Cheap Video Cameras Are Monitoring Our Every Move”, as well as Beech Etal’s, “The Other Side of the Great Firewall”, society may truly have something to fear in the form of surveillance and information manipulation.

This article argues that surveillance is becoming increasingly normal across the USA and the world and that this is changing our freedom and security. It mentioned that globalization and migration of people from different countries some who threaten our country has made this surveillance more necessary to protect our citizens from theorists acts. The article uses examples of video-surveillance to make this case and to argue for both stronger resistances to calls to make our human rights more flexible in a risky time.

Surveillance is not a new thing. In fact, espionage, tracking, and sleuthing were part of society ever since 5000 B.C. But in the rise of the modern era, the idea of surveillance in the public eye serves as a controversial topic of discussion. People everywhere complain about the existence of security cameras, government tracking, and the right to privacy. Such problems, however, are not due to the sudden discovery of surveillance, but the modern abuse of it. Seeing the disastrous effects of over surveillance from George Orwell’s 1984, the public rightfully fears societal deterioration through modern surveillance abuse portrayed in Matthew Hutson’s “Even Bugs Will Be Bugged” and the effects of such in Jennifer Golbeck’s “All Eyes On You”. The abuse of surveillance induces the fear of discovery through the invasion of privacy, and ensures the omnipresence of one’s past that haunt future endeavors, to ultimately obstruct human development and the progress of society overall.

In the work, Fahrenheit 451, citizens seem to be under surveillance all the time. An example of this from this work is the mechanical hound. The mechanical hound goes around the community and searches for people who have books. The same element also appears in the Hunger Games as well.

Today’s government can implement surveillance like in 1984, but the surveillance our government would do would be nothing like the surveillance in 1984. In 1984 the surveillance was to keep all citizens within Party protocol, where as today’s surveillance would be in place for the safety of the citizens. Today’s security cameras are not used to control people like in 1984, but instead are used to keep a watchful eye over the citizens and try to protect them or make them feel more safe. In the article, “Long Beach Police to Use 400 Cameras Citywide to Fight Crime,” the author talks about today’s use for security cameras and how they are being used to attempt to keep our cities safe, rather than being used to spy on the citizens

“The invasion of privacy — of others’ privacy but also our own, as we turn our lenses on ourselves in the quest for attention by any means — has been democratized.” (Walter Kirn). Kirn points out that a citizen can serve as a ‘little brother’ who watches or shares the private moments of another. Citizens not only fear the powerful government, but also their neighbors, siblings, classmates, etc. “With those children, he thought, that wretched woman must lead a life of terror. Another year, two years, and they would be watching her night and day for symptoms of unorthodoxy.” (Orwell, 24). The citizen's neighbors, coworkers, spouse, and children are all potential spies, and surveillance is

Fear is inevitably tied to the common saying “I am watching you”. When one’s actions are constantly monitored and privacy being relentlessly invaded, the individual soon will possess a sort of fear. In the novel Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, the government uses surveillance as a tool for exploiting the privacy of the people which then engages their fear.

Security cameras are on nearly every building and in classrooms. While most of these cameras, such as the ones people put outside their houses to protect their property, are benign in nature, others are used to strike fear and enforce behavior. Students are told that they must behave at all times, because a camera is watching, and signs warn visitors to certain buildings of the cameras pointed at them. These warnings are comparable to the ever-present phrase “Big Brother is watching you” (page 2) in 1984. The posters containing these messages remind people that they must not act out, because they are under constant surveillance. Privacy in Oceania is unheard of, and the way technology is advancing, modern society may be on it’s way to a similar

Specific Purpose: My purpose of this presentation is to inform listeners about the dangers of government surveillance and why it should be stopped.

A world beyond what George Orwell could imagine has been created in modern society through the use of not only government surveillance, but also corporate and consumer spying where users are often unaware of spying.. 1984 is set in a neo-communist society where the government controls production of goods and spies on its citizens in order to maintain power. In the modern era, surveillance takes a different form. Often the methods for spying on citizens in the US do not involve a direct line from the NSA to the citizen’s home, it usually takes a detour through a commercial setting. By partnering with major companies such as Facebook, Google, and Amazon, government surveillance programs are able to collect far more information than could be gained by simply tapping telephone lines. This is more disturbing since many companies including Verizon, AT&T, Apple, and Amazon do not require a warrant to supply information to investigators, and do not notify users of data requests.