George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four portrayed a fictional character named ‘Big Brother,’ whom acted as the enigmatic dictator in a totalitarian state (Orwell, 1949). In the society where every citizen is under the surveillance of ‘Big Brother,’ most conform to the rulings and orders of the authorities out of fear, with the exception of a few.
In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg, a former United States military analyst employed by the RAND Corporation, instigated a national political controversy when he released the top-secret Pentagon Papers to The New York Times (Bean, 2014). These papers exposed presidential deception about the Vietnam War by revealing that the U.S. had secretly enlarged the scale (Bean, 2014). In 2010, Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning, a U.S. army soldier leaked the largest set of classified documents in history to WikiLeaks (Bean, 2014). The information consisted of substantial archive of confidential government documents and the U.S. government has revealed that it was in the hands of Osama bin Laden (Bean, 2014). Even with the amount of information disclosed by these so called ‘whistleblowers,’ no official investigations into alleged war crimes or government misconduct has been issued (Bean, 2014). Both Ellsberg and Manning however, were charged with the Espionage Act of delivering factual information to American citizens. Ellsberg claimed, “The public is lied to every day by the president, by his spokespeople, by his officers. If you can't handle the thought that the president lies to the public for all kinds of reasons, you couldn't stay at that government at that level, where you're made aware of it, a week.” (Kreisler, personal communication, 1998). The privacy and civil rights abuses along with fear of...
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...Looms Over the Patriot Act”, The New York Times. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/us/politics/20patriot.html?ref=usapatriotact&_r=1&
TedTalks. (March 18, 2014). Edward Snowden: Here's how we take back the Internet [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVwAodrjZMY
TedTalks. (March 20, 2014). Richard Ledgett: The NSA responds to Edward Snowden's TED Talk [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLNXIXingyU
Pew Research Center. (June 17, 2013). “Public Split over Impact of NSA Leak, But Most Want Snowden Prosecuted [Data Set]. Retrieved from http://www.people-press.org/files/legacy-pdf/6-17-13%20NSA%20release.pdf
Pew Research Center. (January 20, 2014). “Obama’s NSA Speech has Little Impact on Skeptical Public” [Data Set]. Retrieved from http://www.people-press.org/files/legacy-pdf/1-20-14%20NSA%20Release.pdf
Joseph Stalin, born Josef Vissarionovich Djugashvili, was a totalitarian ruler of the Soviet Union from the 1920’s until his death in 1953. Stalin started his rise to power as General Secretary of the Communist Party. After the death of dictator Vladimir Lenin, he became the Soviet dictator. Stalin’s reign of terror, lasting over two decades, included thorough surveillance brainwashing of his countrymen which resulted in the deaths of millions of people. Just as Stalin left his mark as a totalitarian menace, so did Big Brother in George Orwell’s dystopian world of Oceania in his novel 1984. Stalin and Big Brother instilled fear upon their conglomerates by means of surveillance, propaganda, media control, sovereignty, and murder in order to remain in complete control of their countries. The two dictators had one focal, barbaric idea in common: the ability to access and control
According to the Oxford Dictionary, Big Brother is “A person or organization exercising total control over people's lives.” Not only is Big Brother featured in George Orwell's novel 1984, the concept of a “Big Brother” is also seen everywhere around us in our everyday lives. Our modern-day form of Big Brother is our own government and the way it keeps surveillance over us. The way the United States and many other modern-day countries govern these days, with all their new advanced technology, we citizens are never truly alone. Our every move is constantly being watched. The difference between our modern-day Big Brother and the Big Brother in the novel 1984 is that our monitors claim to want to keep us safe, not to brainwash us to attain total power and control.
“For every 32 people in London, there is one surveillance camera.” Today one uses technology numerous times throughout the duration of the day without even realizing it. In an Orwellian type society, technology such as surveillance cameras and television screens dictate the majority of people’s life. Modern day surveillance cameras are typically put in by local governments to watch for crime. If Big Brother, the political icon in George Orwell’s 1984, truly does watch over the citizens, there are some precautions the citizens could take to prevent this. Today’s society shows many of the key characteristics that an Orwellian society shows.
Keck, Zachary. "Yes, Edward Snowden Is a Traitor." The Diplomat. N.p., 21 Dec. 2013. Web. 21 Feb. 2014
In May of 2013, Edward Snowden met with journalist Glenn Greenwald and controversial documentary film director Laura Poitras to release numerous national security- related documents to them. Snowden, who at the time was a computer professional with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and a former contractor with the National Security Agency
In June 2013, Edward Snowden revealed an unauthorized disclosure to The Guardian in an interview about a warrantless action of the government, that NSA has been accessing through the world's nine biggest internet companies to collect data works from citizens. The datas are draw and analyze by NSA from citizen's personal informations such as audios, videos, pictures, e-mails, instant messages, documented files, social network activities, and contact informations. In this surveillance plan, there are two secret program. One is to monitor citizens' network activities, and the second is to monitor through citizens' telephone call records. This is the largest monitoring project that had ever happened in the history of America and it really staggered the public.
During his presentation, Ethan asked the class whether we would be comfortable with the government watching all of our internet usage. When the class responded with a resounding “no”, Ethan explained that Snowden was attempting to make the government’s spying visible, as the public needed to know. This made his presentation effective as it made Snowden’s actions feel personal, consequently appealing to pathos.
Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency (N.S.A) subcontractor turned whistle-blower is nothing short of a hero. His controversial decision to release information detailing the highly illegal ‘data mining’ practices of the N.S.A have caused shockwaves throughout the world and have raised important questions concerning how much the government actually monitors its people without their consent or knowledge. Comparable to Mark Felt in the Watergate scandals, Daniel Ellsberg with the Pentagon Papers, Edward Snowden joins the rank of infamous whistleblowers who gave up their jobs, livelihood, and forever will live under scrutiny of the public all in the service to the American people. Edward Snowden released information detailing the extent of the N.S.A breaches of American privacy and in doing so, became ostracized by the media and barred from freely reentering America, his home country.
...coded: Edward Snowden's surveillance revelations explained | World news | theguardian.com. Retrieved May 15, 2014, from http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/nov/01/snowden-nsa-files-surveillance-revelations-decoded#section/1
In the dystopian novel, “1984’, George Orwell portrays many aspects of the lack of privacy and human rights that ruin the lives of people through “Big Brother”, a very strong and controlling political figure in the novel. He is the dictator of Oceania and has the lives of everyone who lives in Oceania in the palm of his hand. The ways of this dictator are inhumane and questionable. Constantly exposing corrupt propaganda to continue brainwashing their citizens, constantly monitoring each individual to ensure they are not committing to thought crime or to any act of rebellion , and depriving the people of the ability to enjoy pleasure. If any were to rebel against the Party, hell would be brought upon them.
To be more specific, the most Americans, 56 percent, believe that the federal courts have failed to establish an adequate framework on how much personal information the government is allowed to collect using the Internet and telephone lines (Epstein). In turn, 70 percent of respondents are convinced that the governmental organizations use the gathered information not only for fighting with and preventing terrorism but also for controlling own citizens. The 50 percent of the US citizens support the overall monitoring program, along with the National Security Agency. More than half of Americans expressed the opinion that the actions of Edward Snowden was a crime and should be brought to justice. However, there is 38 percent of respondents who believe in the innocence of Snowden saying that a criminal case against him should not be
The American government used to be able to keep the people in happy ignorance to the fact that they watch every move they make. After certain revelations of people like Edward Snowden, the public knows the extent of the government spying. On June 5, 2013 Edward Snowden leaked documents of the NSA to the Guardian (The Guardian 2). The whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed to the world how the American government collects information like cell phone metadata, Internet history, emails, location from phones, and more. President Obama labeled the man a traitor because he showed the world the illegal acts the NSA performs on US citizens (Service of Snowden 1). The government breached the people’s security, and now the people are afraid because everyone is aware of how the US disapproves of people who do not agree with their programs. Obama said that these programs find information about terrorists living in the US, but he has lit...
Security is a vital asset for the advancement and stability of any country. Today exists a world where protection and security are getting progressively more necessary for the strength of a nation. It is believed the advances of technology allow boundless possibilities of protection, which has kept the United States safe for several years. With the media becoming more prevalent in today’s society, we as citizens know much more about threats to our nation than we had in previous years. A prime example of this knowledge is fairly due to a man named Edward Snowden. Snowden is a former National Security Agency (NSA) member who made headlines
In May 2013, Edward Snowden, a consultant working for the National Security Agency, began copying documents on the agency’s domestic surveillance practices, which included spying on millions of American citizens. One program was called PRISM. Snowden supplied those secret documents to news outlets, and the following month the Guardian and the Washington Times released Snowden's published information on the NSA program that allowed real-time information collection on American citizens. A flood of information followed, and the US Government and the American people demanded to either hear more about it or have Snowden arrested.1
Most recently, Edward Snowden who is a former CIA employee and NSA contactor released over 200,000 documents to the press. These documents contained information about the mass NSA surveillance program in the US as well as US surveillance on other countries. Snowden is considered a fugitive by the American government and is living in Russia under temporary asylum. (NSA Releases Some Files On Electronic Surveillance, NPR, 2013)