The Panopticon

Is anyone’s private information contained in their cell phone actually private? Are appointments, bank information, conversations, the user’s location or other sensitive personal information truly confidential? Is there a Big Brother watching? There is no definitive answer to any of these questions. From the beginning of time to now, privacy has become more and more scarce. Through new developments in technology, it is hard to believe that someone is not watching your move at any given moment. The government’s job is to keep Americans safe, but where is the line drawn? Where is the difference between having a reasonable doubt and accessing information solely because these government officials have the power to do so? The government has infringed upon the rights of the American people when it comes to this topic.

From a towering architectural manifestation stationed in Saint Petersburg, a television surveillance system labeled “Big Brother,” and the everyday global positioning system located in handheld devices, the Panopticon in all forms has been an attempt at total surveillance. In order to understand the literal and metaphorical panopticons as concepts of total surveillance, we must first define their most prominent features and components, which include geography, cost and benefit. This can be done by examining the generality of the Panopticon’s nature, the concept behind the making, how people can better understand concepts, and both the literal and metaphorical forms of the panopticon.

Protecting American citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures is the central idea of the Fourth Amendment; however, the Fourth Amendment may also apply to electronics. Classified organizations, such as, the NSA secretly collect information that includes, details of phone calls, e-mails, and personal Internet activity, although, in 2013 the NSA’s secret was revealed to the public, since it was not publicly known that the NSA had been collecting bulk phone data. The NSA later tried to defend itself and state that it doesn’t mean that they collect all personal records, such as, medical records and library records. In order for the NSA to legally store phone data the agency must first receive a warrant from the FISA Court each time it wants

Privacy, as defined by the American Heritage Dictionary, is the quality or condition of being secluded from the presence or view of others, and the state of being free from public attention or unsanctioned intrusion. Interestingly, the Constitution of the United States does not expressly protect a person 's right to privacy; there are however some provisions to privacy within the Bill of Right and the Amendments to the Constitution. Among them are the first amendment, that ensures the privacy or belief, the third amendment, that ensures the privacy of home, and the fourth amendment, that ensures the privacy of person and possession.

Privacy (http://www.dictionary.com/browse/privacy) is being by ourselves. “The state of being free from unwanted or undue intrusion or disturbance in one's private life or affairs; freedom to be let alone.” “Freedom from damaging publicity, public scrutiny, secret surveillance, or unauthorized disclosure of one’s personal data or information, as by a government, corporation, or individual.” Having a state of concealed/secrecy.

George Orwell's 1984 is a book that is purely based on power and propaganda. The party manages to accomplish this power and propaganda by using surveillance. Party members in Oceania are constantly under surveillance, whether it is of their private or public life. There are numerous surveillance techniques which are used by the party to maintain and even gain more power. This leads to the concept of a panopticon, originally thought up by Jeremy Bentham. Thus this essay will include the concepts of the panopticon with relation to the novel and consider how these extensive surveillance techniques eliminate party member’s private space and how it has the ability to constrict the thoughts of party members.

To start, is Foucault 's Panopticism. Panopticism uses the idea of Bentham’s Panopticon to elaborate the disciplinary ideas that he is trying to explain. The Panopticon is an “all seeing” structure that makes observations without the people ever knowing when they were being watched, even though it is clearly visible (Foucault, 204). Its gaze can be upon anyone, from a “madman, a patient, a condemned man” (Foucault, 200). These features allow Panopticism to be a passive power, rather than an active one. With this in mind, power is shifted from the hands of the individual to the anonymous “supervisor” of the Panopticon (Foucault, 200). This method of observation facilitates the transformation of individuals to controllable individuals (Foucault, 205).

Foucault began to compare this new idea of surveillance, power and punishment of the Panopticon to the power during the Middle Ages by the King which was more public in contrast to the Panopticon. The Panopticon was more discrete. It was not a show or form of entertainment when someone was punished unlike when someone is punished with the King. By exploring this, Foucault demonstrated how surveillance has changed overtime.

In his essay “Panopticism,” Michel Foucault introduces the Panopticon structure as proof of modern society tending toward efficient disciplinary mechanisms. Starting with his example of the strict, intensely organized measures that are taken in a typical 17th-century plague-stricken town, Foucault describes how the town employed constant surveillance techniques, centralized a hierarchy of authorities to survey households, partitioned individual structures to impose certain behavior, and record current information about each individual.

Privacy; the state of being free from being observed or being disturbed. Things such as credit card companies, ads on television, warnings on the evening news, and even locker searches at school all directly contradict the definition of “privacy”.

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.

Panopticism is a social theory named after the “panopticon”, which was originally developed by the French philosopher, Michel Foucault. Panopticon was first mentioned in his book, Discipline and Punish. In his book, he refers "panopticon" to “an experimental laboratory of power in which behaviour could be modified.” Foucault considered panopticon as a symbol of the “disciplinary society of surveillance” (Panopticism). In the two novels, Nineteen Eighty-Four and Frankenstein, panopticism is an element shown greatly. Though these two novels have many differences, this similarity shared between the two is equally important.

The author of the essay “Panopticism”, Michel Foucault gives his opinion on power and discipline in Panopticism. He describes Jeremy Bentham’s “Panopticon”, a tower in the centre of a room which has vision to every cell, generalized for prisoners. In simple words, it functioned in maintaining discipline throughout the jail. It’s most distinctive feature was that; prisoners could be seen without ever seeing. Prisoners would never really know when they are watched and when not. They are always under the impression that someone is keeping an eye on them continuously and if anything goes wrong, or they make mistake, they would be punished severely. Since, a prisoner would never know when he/she is watched, they have to be at their best. In a

Michel Foucault wrote a book called History of Sexuality. In Part five of the book Right of Death and Power over Life, he discusses about the historical “Sovereign Power” where one is allowed to decide who has the right to live and who has the right to die. The sovereign uses his power over life through the deaths that he can command and uses his authority to announce death by the lives he can spare. Foucault then moves on to Disciplinary Power where he came up with the “Panopticon” where one is to believe they were under surveillance at all times. Such surveillance is still used in our everyday life such as schools, prisons, offices, hospitals, and mental institutes. Later in his life, Foucault discovered Bio-power. This bio-power

In this passage, power implies that it’s the very essence of human nature. Something that sway’s us like tree’s to the wind. Most of us don’t even notice it since it’s so ingrained in our individuality. As things go most of the power go to the few, since Americans have set it in stone decades back. I can see most of this changing with the new revolutionary ideas that are coming to light with the newer generations. But as it states with the Panopticon, it’s more of a state of mind. That watchful eye in the sky that can take your freedom away by breaking a law or two. Consequence’s that have been placed in motion to keep its flock of sheep in its pen. There are upsides to the point of the Panopticon, gives anyone with any ill will that has a