Monday, December 9, 2013

1984 or Real Life?

In 1984, the thought police are a pretty creepy idea. To know that all the time, someone is monitoring your thoughts, that you never have complete privacy, that’s pressure that no average citizen wants to deal with. Personally, and I think I speak for more than just myself, I think the thought police is a huge invasion of privacy that most people could do without, and wouldn’t want to deal with. The good news is that 1984 is just a book written by George Orwell, and the thought police don’t really exist. At least in our country we have rights to our privacy that the government can’t see, right? Wrong. We don’t have thought police yet, but we have the National Security Agency (NSA) which is pretty close.
Whether or not you realize it, the NSA knows more about you than the average person is comfortable with. The NSA knows everything you searched on the internet, they can read your emails, and even listen in on your phone calls. With a plethora of information readily available to them they can determine what we like and dislike, and basically what type of person we are. What you once thought was your “private” information, the government knows. Knowing that the NSA can listen to my phone calls and see all my internet activity and emails unnerves me.
In 1984, party members accepted the thought police’s role in their society based on the party saying that they shouldn’t worry about it if they have nothing to hide. That is exactly what the United States government said when addressing the NSA situation. They are invading our privacy, and no matter how they justify doing it, it is still flat out wrong.
ce1.jpggood guy nsa
https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying