| In 1984 Essay, Research Paper
I hope it will never be as bad as it was in 1984
In 1948 Eric Blair, better known as George Orwell, wrote a book with chilling insights into the future, 1984. In that book he describes in detail how the government of Oceania manipulated the truth and regulated feelings and thoughts. An irrational future for society, perhaps not even today in the media there are ways of lying to us and making us think what they want by showing us what they want us to see. In 1984, Thought Police watch the people through telescreens, microphones and helicopters. Many people do not believe this will come true because they do not see it happening. However, it is entirely conceivable that the government could be watching us now. Perhaps, though only on a small scale.
Internet surveillance is one of the hottest subjects within this notion, and some people are very good at it. The people watching probably would not go directly into your account, which would be as illegal as entering your private room without a warrant. However, they could easily watch the packets of information running through their systems and rebuild the your private E-mail, or newsgroup transactions, piecing those together can be detrimental to you, as well as legal for the watcher. In order to change the future and the present you do not need to own a time machine. You simply have to control the past. In 1984 the government, or “The Party,” controlled the past. They were able to destroy all proof that something did or did not happen. “The Party” was able to destroy all of the references that something, even a person, ever existed. Although one may remember that person, they could never find proof that it was true. The most alarming part about this is that it is much easier to do it in the world today. Since most information is now kept on disk, and backed up onto even more magnetic media, one could simply destroy all areas where the data said that someone had existed. Talk about a missing person.
Our government is taking steps towards this type of Orwellian society all the time. It is hard to believe, but just look at recent legislation. It first started with the advent of the Social Security System. We now are required to receive serial numbers before a certain age so that we can be catalogued for this service, which I might add we will probably never receive. This seemingly innocent indexing of people has turned into a major privacy crisis. Our Social Security number is now used for everything. When one goes to college they use their number there. When you apply for a credit card or any service like this you use this number. We now have problems with people looking up our credit history using this one number. They do not even need our permission. At the time it seemed like a great idea. Which is probably how we will be duped in the future. If it isn’t bad enough that they admit they want to catalogue their citizens, our government basically admits that they need to watch them as well. There was a bill sent through Congress, which would force telecommunication companies to place a chip called the Clipper Chip into all of their products. This chip would allow the government, with two electronic keys, to watch our telecommunication transactions. They also passed an act called Digital Telephony. This bill states that the government will give a certain amount of money to large telecommunication providers (telephone mostly) to rework their networks so that the government’s men can attach themselves and listen to our private conversations. Let me repeat myself here, they are using OUR money to watch us. It is great that they can catch a criminal easier but it is not worth it to loose that freedom and live in fear.
While we in the U.S. are busy at our jobs in the rat race, the government is pulling the wool over our eyes. They are working towards ways to keep us in line. I don’t know if there is a great conspiracy against us. All I know is that we are being taken as suckers, and pretty soon we will have no privacy to think of. We must work to stop the evolution of these and all other destruction of privacy. We cannot allow ourselves to lose what little freedom we have left, and most of all we must always be able to say that 2+2=4 and never have to utter that, we are the dead.
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