Encryption In 1984

As exponentially increasing numbers of people around the world use online services that often collect personal identification information, the need for data protection through software such as encryption has gained incredible interest. However, the compatibility of such software with laws such as the USA Patriot Act is frequently debated, as is whether the government can legally break encryption codes to intercept and use private, personal information in the interest of “national security”. Author George Orwell brilliantly extrapolated the effects of excessive government surveillance in his dystopian novel 1984, which can be thought to convey a warning message to our society. Although the US government and its surveillance institutions, such

This conversion procedure, which prevents the risks of data interception, provides people with heightened personal privacy and security – including protection from nonconsensual, unwarranted government interception of this data. However, the issue of whether encryption hampers the government’s ability to ensure national security has risen again in light of the fairly recent terrorist attacks on US soil, including the Boston Marathon bombings and, most notably, the 2001 September 11th attacks (McCutcheon, Government Surveillance). The public is split on this issue, with many people vying for their right to have control over the release of their personal information, while other citizens and government officials contend that encryption software gives terrorists a safer platform on which to plan and execute attacks, putting the entire nation in danger. In Orwell’s 1984, the nation is eternally at war, but the effects of this war are kept secret from citizens by way of censorship and surveillance of civilian activity. Citizens are kept physically secure from the dangers of war, which is supposed to make the society happier and more productive. The question is whether this happiness derived from oblivion and government control is truly more desirable than knowledge and freedom, which

This is already hampering government efforts to track the actions of criminal suspects and gather evidence in many cases. Dan Smith, chief of research for the Center for Defense Information maintains that, “If [strong encryption software] were easily obtainable, our ability to keep apprised of what terrorists and other enemies were doing would be severely hampered” (Masci, Internet Privacy). Having the power and facility to track criminal movements faster than criminals can cover them is key to solving tricky cases such as the Boston Marathon bombings, in which the government was able to obtain and analyze the phone call histories of suspects Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev in order to locate them. As Martin Hellman mentioned in an NPR radio broadcast, “Basically, our civil liberties are collateral damage to our national security state” (Flatow, Cracking Open Encryption Standards, NPR). The concept of allowing the government to observe and control some aspects of civilian life in order to maintain collective peace and security is an enduring proposition, often termed ‘The Social Contract’, has been frequently used by government to justify any violation of liberties such as freedom of speech and