Do you ever feel like someone’s watching you? We may not see it, but government surveillance has skyrocketed throughout the years. Anything that we do with our electronic devices can be monitored by the government. Our privacy can be intruded on and we don’t even have a clue. Once our information is in the government’s hands, it can be spread widely and kept for years, and the rules about access and use can be changed entirely in secret without the public ever knowing. This has caused people to be unable to travel, attain jobs, or even access their own money. In Monica Hughes’s Invitation to the Game, we see examples of government surveillance such as the thought police that infiltrate the character’s minds to get information.(pg.19) A lot has led up to the advanced government surveillance that we have today. Government surveillance has been around since the Roman Empire days. In Ancient Rome, …show more content…
I hated that we had not even an inch of freedom or privacy. Fourteen years ago in 2102, I had a tracker embedded into my arm the day I was born. Ever since that day, the government has somehow been able to track my every move and thought. This happens to the entire population. The only good part that comes out of it, is that we haven’t had a serious crime since 2078. If they find anyone doing or thinking something they find as threatening, risky, or intolerable, they will put it on your record. If you acquire more than 50 alerts by the age 30, you will be put in a government prison for the rest of your life. I’m already at 15 alerts. We are taught at a very young age to live by every rule we are given, and to never rebel. Sometimes I wonder if the life we live is even worth it since our creativity, thoughts, and actions seem to be a curriculum that we must follow. Sometimes I also wonder what life would be like if we were free of these invisible reigns. Oh, there goes my beeper
They even have tele-screens in every home and store to watch peoples every move. First of all it removes all the privacy of many people and removes their freedom to speak freely. They even have laws that may kill you if you speak, look, or even think of the party poorly. It is a warning that the government may manipulate the whole society in the future. 3.
Every day 3 billion phone records are stored. This goes on every single day. NSA is invading everyone 's privacy. Every day 3 billion phone records are stored. All your selfies on your phone are taken and the NSA can turn your webcam on without you knowledge.
Imagine for a second that every phone call you make, every text message you send, and every place you go is being constantly monitored by multiple governments. Well this is basically what the United State and United Kingdom's government is doing on a daily basis. The United States National Security Agency has been implementing projects in secret to monitoring people since 2001 but it would still be kept as a secret if Edward Snowden did not reveal this massive secret that was intruding the public’s privacy for years. The U.S. surveillance program started because of the September 9th, 2001 terrorist attack that hijacked airplanes and slammed them into the World Trade Center towers.
While there are still debates on the exact scope of government surveillance, the fact that there have been steps taken to limit its excesses shows that the United States values individual rights. As technology advances and security threats evolve, it will be important for policymakers to continue to evaluate the role of surveillance in national security and ensure that privacy protections are not sacrificed in the name of
Particularly interesting about government surveillance is that in the United States surveillance
NSA Surveillance "I can 't in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they 're secretly building" (Edward Snowden). The NSA began monitoring and collecting sensitive and personal information from Americans such as their emails, phone calls, photos and other private material. Massive surveillance began in 2001 after the terrorist attack in New York and since then there has been a big peak in government watching. It 's unnecessary for the NSA to monitor American’s private conversations as well as other sensitive data because people should be able to have a sense of privacy in personal communication with others. Government watching is something that the government shouldn’t do because although there are bad people in this world it is irrelevant for them to watch everyone because not everyone is bad and many people disfavors this decision.
There’s a question americans usually ask themselves, is the government trustable? Many citizens would answer no, many americans believe that the government is constantly watching them. The privacy of americans citizens is being violated by the gps trackers in our phones that the government can see and monitor, how the governments listens to our calls and how they store all our information. This is similar to the privacy violations explored in 1984 by showing how in 1984 Big Brother is constantly watching it’s citizens.
“Privacy advocates have challenged the legality of the program in court, and one Judge deemed the program unconstitutional and "almost Orwellian," while another one ruled it legal” (Franceschi-Bicchierai np). The world in 1984 is very uniform and drab. If someone is to show the slightest sign of a thought that goes against the government, they are taken and tortured until they are loyal citizens again. This creates an environment of people who are all the same and think the same. Without difference of opinion in the U.S., there would be no progress, debate, or opportunities to learn.
American citizens live in a world where there’s freedom of many things. Citizens are allowed to practice their right to freedom of religion in public worship places, free speech in public, even their sexuality in public. Yet there’s also an opposite world people have heard about; a world in which a totalitarian government forces its citizens to be subject to every law to the fullest extent, and the worst part? The citizens have no freedom at all. In 1984, that world is Oceania; the all totalitarian dictatorship governing body.
Surveillance is becoming increasingly integrated into human lives. Seemingly inconsequential minutiae like how long one spends in line at a grocery store or how many times a headline is clicked on a social media site are collected automatically by both public and private institutions. Whatever we do and wherever we go, there is likely some trace of it. This has led to great debates about the right to privacy, how much surveillance is too much, and under what circumstances surveillance is justifiable. Film and Television play important roles in these debates and in the way in which the public conceptualizes the utility and threat of surveillance more generally.
The U.S. government is invading the privacy of its’ citizens through the use of mobile devices such as phones and laptops. This use of privacy invasion is similar to the technology used in George Orwell’s novel 1984. What makes today relate to 1984 is how the government tracks us through location, voice, and messaging. George Orwell’s 1984 has a totalitarian government that can track its’ citizens through location with the use of telescreens. In the novel, telescreens can track your location in a room through a telescreen, which is demonstrated by Winston´s thought ¨so long as you remained within the field of vision … you could be seen¨ (Orwell, page 3).
George Orwell wrote 1984 as a warning to and vision of the future. Our society has many similarities with 1984. The United State government uses many similar tactics as the Party in 1984. They use brainwashing, surveillance, and lying to their people to keep their power.
The technology has been advanced and transformed which has changed the concept of privacy in today’s world. As far as our thinking capacity allows us, we consider privacy as protecting our life and personal information from government although such attempts are made by them to keep an eye and to control our behavior. The privacy issue has spread to such an extent that can clearly be observed by the given statement of Edward Snowden few months ago. He stated about his access to such documents about the revelation of various U.S and British programs through using internet, web, television and such mediums that completely destroys our privacy.
That's my tracker,” by Peter Maass and Megha Rajagopalan they talk about how every personal information that a citizen has safe on their phone is not safe and that their phones are in danger. In the article, they mention how “1.3 million of call data was collected”. Millions of cell phone users have been swept up in government surveillance of their calls. That proves that cell phone companies have definitely been watching our every move and how our phones have obviously become like our personal trackers. In the article, they also mention how “Cellular systems constantly check and record the location of all phones on their networks – and this data is particularly treasured by police departments and online advertisers” this obviously shows that the government is able to obtain private information from citizens.
Technology is growing at a fast pace and every day we see a new product or service that is available. Many times it is hard to even keep up with the latest phone, computer, game console, or software. There are so many different gadgets to choose from and even the internet is on information overload. As a result, we can no longer truly expect to have privacy.