Government Surveillance: Slowly Changing the Government to a Totalitarian State
1984 written by George Orwell depicts the superstate of Oceania as a totalitarian society overwatching the people. In the place where freedom of the people was its top priority, the United States has fallen into the grasp of absolute dictatorship over its citizens. The actions of the United States of America’s government are now reaching a rate of surveillance on the people that is unjustifiable and alike to a totalitarian society.
First off, the government of the United States of America is allowed too much access to the data people send. Everyday, millions of people in the United States send and receive data. From a simple text saying “I love you” to a business report about the risks of establishing a cat food subsidiary, the government has access to much information. The NSA, the National Security Agency
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The government keeps many of their programs top secret from the public eye. Only until Edward Snowden, former NSA contractor, leaked out two hundred thousand documents from the NSA is how the public know about major data collection programs such as “Prism” or “Boundless Informant”. Even workers in the United States’ Department of Homeland Security know how controversial some of these programs are. A worker in a fusion center, a place where information is collected and examined, states that “‘If people knew what we were looking at, they’d throw a fit’” (Rosen 28). The government is hiding many of their programs from the general eye because they know they will cause widespread controversy. The citizens in the US will not be the only ones offended, but nations around the world will criticize the US’s actions as well, shown with the backlash from the documents leaked by Snowden. While politicians may fight for the transparency of the government’s actions, right now, they want to hide what they are