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Utilitarianism In 1984

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Imagine turning on the morning Fox News only to see there was another terrorist attack somewhere in the world. Imagine working for the government as a person who reads individual’s emails, texts, or listens in on their phone calls, only to realize the job was to spy on innocent citizens. What if people were told they were being watched “to prevent another terrorist attack,” only to understand the government did not see the past few coming, such as the “Boston Marathon Bombing or the New York Times Square Bombing”(For the Record)? These events lead up to the government making individuals give up their freedom because they are being spied on, similar to the ones described in George Orwell’s book, 1984. Characters such as Winston and Julia lived …show more content…

Winston and Julia were searching for alone time in order to read the book O’Brien gave to them, written by Emmanuel Goldstein. They were rudely interrupted by “a long, rolling clang, as though the washtub had been flung across the yard” and a man yelling to Winston and Julia that “the house was surrounded” (Orwell 222). Julia and Winston were given the book as a trap to detect if they were committing crimes against the Party or Big Brother. Mr. Charrington was a member of the Thought Police and was used to assist the Party in spying on Winston and Julia’s personal lives above his shop. Similar to the Party barging in on Julia and Winston reading the book by Emmanuel Goldstein, the government had no problem carrying out the same sneaky acts as the Party. Citizens are upset because the government is spying on their private text messages to study what people are doing and what they are talking about. Citizens are claiming the matter is a “privacy issue,” however the government does not have “the right to poke their nose into the private life” of individuals because this is a free country (Regulating Texting Freedom). Americans must come together and demand their freedom back by protesting the amount of usage on cell phones or personal information citizens sore in devices to eliminate the government getting into individuals phones. If citizens work together to stop this issue Americans will not have to worry about living in a society like 1984. How can Americans stop the government from having constant surveillance of their lives? Through secrets, lies, and constant surveillance, the government demonstrates time and again that the acts they commit in order to distract individuals from the changing world around them, easily prove that the government interest in the privacy of its citizens is not a high

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