"1984" and "The NSA"

George Orwell predicted in his 1948 masterpiece "1984" that a totalitarian government focused on stripping away the rights of the individual would be the starting pawn in the most successful totalitarian government possible. With Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World," this is the original dystopian novel, depicting a world where the individuality of identity and personality are taken away for the government to feed off of.

As haunting and chilling as "1984" presents itself to be, the scariest part of the novel is its significance in drawing its comparisons to the modern world. The most prominent part of this is the concept of 'government surveillance.' There's a fine line between what the government sees as protection of individual citizenship, and what constitutes being able to 'search and seize.' In "1984" the government, through telescreens, can see each individual's actions and base their criminal preference off of microexpressions.

Now, in the modern world, the government isn't looking at us at all angles throughout every one of our days, but there's a similarity between the tracking of movement through telescreens and the idea of government wiretapping. Wiretapping is the government's ability to track and listen to each and every conversation being held over both a cell-phone, phone-booth, and wired-in phone across the United States.

There's no visual perception being taken into account, but at the same time, there's little difference between reading lips and hearing what people actually talk about. In "1984" this system is used to pick out those who believe in anti-government propaganda, and let the government find them in an attempt to convert them into faithful citizens who can support Big Brother and understand his policies, wants, and desires.

The primary difference between the two institutions is the intention for which the concept of invasion of privacy is being used. For Big Brother, this is a method used to ensure that there's no break in citizen authority, that no citizen actually feels any sort of hatred for the singular government institution. At the same time, there's a sense of security and 'paternal' protection associated with the government of Big Brother and what it means to be 'watched.'

In America, this same system of invasion of privacy is used to protect and serve American citizens. In exchange for the government being allowed to insert itself into any personal conversation a person could have, they are able to track the dangerous conversations between potential criminals, terrorists, and track threats that put the safety of Americans at risk. Thus, there's an innate sense of safety and security in the American system, which doesn't exist in Big Brother.

However, this doesn't mean that it couldn't quickly become negative. How long until the government needs some sort of outlet to ensure a political candidate won't have competition? How long until the government can misinterpret a conversation and put an innocent couple in prison? How long until the government wants to prevent any sort of anarchic movement and puts anyone in prison who has 'government bad' on their search history?

The comparisons between security invasion of the modern world and George Orwell's fictional nightmare are strikingly similar. However, the government of 1984 has very negative intentions, whereas the modern government does not. While there is an ethical moral behind the origins of the modern American government, the risks associated with invasion of privacy make it the same sot of 'early bird' Big Brother whose control over the individual could extend far greater than it ever seems logical.