The+Teeter+Totter+of+Safety+vs.+Freedom

__** The Teeter Totter of Safety Versus Freedom **__ Jack S. Moritz Period 4

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Life in America was always taught that rights came above all else, but now that times are changing there are many who think that safety should come in place of rights. __Little Brother__, a story by Corey Doctorow about a teenage hacker who ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time. He is captured by the DHS and when he is released, it becomes his mission to take down the government at all costs and free his nation again. However, George Orwell had a much more radical view of society in his book __1984__, a book based in the future where everyone is spied upon and if people have views that are not in line with Big Brother, they are destroyed. Winston attempts to change the amount of governmental control by joining a resistance organization, but he ends up only causing himself problems and not changing anything. In both __Little Brother__ by Corey Doctorow and __1984__ by George Orwell, ideology that freedom must be given up in place of safety was taught to the reader, but didn’t teach how to stop the government from encroaching on their rights, but also was given a good starting place of how much people’s rights have been diminished.

In both books, there were ideas given to the reader that started them thinking about how the government has painted a picture that safety is the ultimate power and that in order to achieve it, people must give up constitutional rights. Marcus understands that rights and freedoms are much more important to Americans, “I can't go underground for a year, ten years, my whole life, waiting for freedom to be handed to me. Freedom is something you have to take for yourself.” (Doctorow 118). He wants to have his rights back, and never wishes to be placed in that sort of interrogation situation again. But he took it a step farther, and instead of just wanting repentance for crimes against him, he attempts to get revenge by causing mayhem in the city. In __1984__ the effects are even more apparent to Winston, where the government is supposed to help the people, but they are too busy fighting the war and changing people’s minds to actually save many lives. In Winston's "safe society", his government still fails to save lives "The bomb had demolished a group of houses two hundred meters up the street." (Orwell 1984) He has absolutely no freedoms and yet deaths are still able to occur that the government couldn't stop. People enjoy the safety, and like the feeling that nothing can go wrong. However, the tables turn the instant that people are suspected of a crime, "Tragedy is if I get a paper cut... Comedy is if you fall in an open sewer and die." (Comedy) and are interrogated they usually become very opposed to governmental control and cherish their rights that much more. Human beings are flawed in the aspect that they don't know what they have until it's gone, and when it is gone they complain quite vocally their position.

While I did learn that the government was encroaching on our rights and why I should care about it, I am still unaware of what steps should be taken in order to stem the tide of governmental control and loss. While I do know that there is no singular answer to the problems presented in these books concerning government getting out of hand, I had hoped that they would have given us a better way to change what is happening other than hacking the government or having an affair. Marcus is a genius hacker who writes all his own codes, and he creates an encrypted internet tunnel to protect his behind the scenes work hacking the DHS "I wasn't too worried about doing this, because I had a good crypto on my side. Crypto is cryptography or "secret writing" and it has been around since roman times" (Doctorow 97) He explained in more detail about cryptography, but he never went into any detail about how to create a secret tunnel or how to break a crypto code. This part was integral in the story because in the end he has to create a master group because the DHS broke his original key to the code. This was important in his securing his own freedom because it was something only he controlled that no one but the people who he wanted to could read. If everyone used cryptography in their daily lives, people would have less to fear from hackers stealing confidential it is a good balance between safety and freedom because people are secure but the government does not have to listen in on potentially confidential or embarrassing conversations. Winston however is in a much more difficult position because he is much less technologically inclined and this causes his situation to deteriorate faster than it would have had he been more tech savvy. When both Winston and Julia are in the apartment together that didn't have the telescreen, he should have searched harder for it "'You are the dead' repeated the iron voice. ‘It was behind the picture,' breathed Julia." (Orwell 220) for it had been there the entire time spying and watching them break the rules of the party. This room was supposed to be their safe haven, a place to go where no one could find them, a single freedom. The "safety" that the party provided was safety for itself, not for its people, which is distressing because it would appear that the more spying that happens on every individual, the less free or safe the individual is. While this is not so disturbing because it is happening in a future world, and article posted by End of the American Dream brings into reality how much the government is spying on people under the guise of protection from terrorists and criminals. This article brought to my attention numerous atrocities in rights that I thought could only be possible in futuristic world like __1984__, where the government spies on its people constantly over street cameras, conversations are listened to through sound tapping devices, or where data is stolen off of a user’s phone without their knowledge or consent. So far, I know very little about how to stop them from taking my rights in this way because they "spend billions upon billions of dollars to enhance their surveillance capabilities" and common people do not have the kind of money to fight back against this hoard of ever updated surveillance. Hopefully with more research answers will be found on how to stop this technology from taking our rights and being able to take them back, but at the moment even my research has been insufficient in tapping devices run on similar programming.

Both books give such a clear narrative of what is happening not only in today government but also in past governments, and gave me a good starting place of what to do now. __1984__ showed that when governments get out of hand with security and watching the people, rebellion is crushed and any resistance is futile ""If there is any hope [wrote Winston] it lies in the proles." (Orwell 69) The proles make up 80% of Oceania's population, and they are the only way to take back the people’s rights. It is the same now, where we are all dormant and waiting until something really gets out of hand and we cannot do anything about it. However, sometimes the takeover is nearly instantaneous and now one can respond until it is too late. Marcuse felt this way in __Little Brother__ when he knew that the DHS was doing wrong but he couldn't convince his dad that they were "I lost it. ’They're talking about investigating practically every person in the city of San Francisco!' ... he said '...This could be the best thing that ever happened to this country.'" (Doctorow 137) Even his own family who should always side for its own members was turned against righteous thinking because of a disaster and quick addition of a police regime. People need to wake up from their present slumber and become aware that the government is changing. No sacred documents like the constitution or bill of rights are honored well, yet people just brush it off as though nothing is wrong. Just as Glenn Beck put it "Every time the government grows we lose more of who we are." (Beck) We need to move in a direction back to our principles when our nation was first founded, not forward into communist or socialist principles for our government. From here I have a slight understanding of how the government controls and adjusts me, and now I know where to protect my essential freedoms and liberties.

Clearly both __1984__ by George Orwell and __Little Brother__ by Cory Doctorow represent how the government is taking away their rights so that they can be given "safety" though there are still many dangers in the world. It is in my opinion that no matter how many rights the people lose or how hard the government tries, unless they are 100% sure that every bad person is removed there will still be accidents. More likely, however, would be that people would rise up to protest the loss of their rights so in theory the safest course of action is to give as many rights as possible and then take precautionary actions. This may only be a precursor to what will happen in the future, or maybe people will wake up and realize what is happening before it is too late.

__** Works Cited **__

Beck, Glenn. "Glenn Beck Quotes." BrainyQuote. Xplore. Web. 11 Feb. 2012. .

Burns, Pete. //Youtube.com //. Web. 19 Feb. 2012. .

"COMEDY." Wisdom of the Ages, Quotations, a Focuson Quality Rather than Quantity.2012. Web. 09 Feb. 2012. .

Doctorow, Cory. Little Brother. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 2008. Print.

"Every Breath You Take, Every Move You Make – 14 New Ways That The Government Is Watching You." The American Dream. Apr. 2010. Web. 09 Feb. 2012. .

Fields, John. //Brickfield.org //. Web. 19 Feb. 2012. .

James, Alex. //Armageddononline.org //. Web. 19 Feb. 2012. .

Krooks, Katie. //<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px;">Standupamerica.org //<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px;">. Web. 19 Feb. 2012. <http://standupforamerica.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/burning-constitution.jpg?w=600>.

Orwell, George. 1984. New York: Penguin Group, 2003. Print.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px;">Thomas, Andrew. //<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px;">Spectrum.org //<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px;">. Web. 19 Feb. 2012. <http://spectrum.ieee.org/image/62374>.

__** Works Referenced **__ Doctorow, Cory. Little Brother. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 2008. Print.

"Every Breath You Take, Every Move You Make – 14 New Ways That The Government Is Watching You." The American Dream. Apr. 2010. Web. 09 Feb. 2012. <http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/every-breath-you-take-every-move-you-make-14-new-ways-that-the-government-is-watching-you>.

Orwell, George. 1984. New York: Penguin Group, 2003. Print.