1984 Privacy Issues

The issues presented in George Orwell's 1984 surrounding basic human rights and the government's ability to spy on people is still relevant in today's society. There have been several accounts of privacy invasions surrounding governments of different countries spying on their citizens and surveillance cameras being streamed to various public websites. These issues make the definition of privacy vary, when it should be set in stone. Privacy isn’t something that should change depending on who you are. There are instances when privacy should be limited and it those cases it is for the right reasons. Criminals, for instance, shouldn’t have as much privacy as the average adults. Criminals need to be constantly monitored for their welfare and the

The National Security Agency’s (NSA) job is to “lead the Intelligence Community in signals intelligence and information assurance. It intercepts foreign signals and keeps America’s information safe”(Intelligencecareers). The NSA is supposed to keep the American people and their information safe, gather data for foreign intelligence, and is responsible for global monitoring. There’s a bit of irony in this statement and even the NSA’s name in general. Since Edward Snowden stole an alleged 1.5 million files from the NSA and leaked thousands to various reporters in June 2013, there has been controversy regarding the NSA’s definition of security and privacy. These stolen files contained evidence of a top-secret court order regarding the NSA collecting Verizon users telephone records, proof of EvilOlive, a program that collects and stores American’s internet metadata, documents stating that the US government bugged the European Union, files that prove the NSA shits through American’s emails going in and out of the country, an audit found by the Washington Post that shows thousands of times the NSA has broken privacy rules, and files that state the NSA has found a “backdoor” that allows for the collection of data about U.S. citizens without a warrant. The collection of files that relate to PRISM is more relative to the invasion of the American citizens’ privacy. “PRISM is a tool used by the NSA to collect private electronic data belonging to users of major internet services like Gmail, Facebook, Outlook, and others” (Sottek). The basic idea behind PRISM is that it gives the NSA the ability to ask for information regarding a certain individual from the previously listed companies. While the companies and the government declare that the information can only be collected with court approval. Since the discovery of PRISM there has been debate about whether PRISM