Verkhovsky

1
Brian Verkhovsky
Mr. Pinney
Period 2
22 March 2013

Orwellian America Will Never Happen

Modern society has become completely dependent on technology to a point where
it is possible to gain access to our private information, phone calls, location, e-mails and
text messages. Cell-phones provide entertainment through social media and games but it
could be turned into a tracking device at any time. In George Orwells novel 1984, the
citizens of London are constantly being monitored and listened to by telescreens which
are located almost everywhere. Though Orwell goes to an extreme level of surveillance in
his novel, there are still numerous frightening similarities to our society. It seems that
privacy is now a feeling of the past as surveillance becomes easier with almost every new
technological innovation. Our society may seem that it is continuously becoming more
Orwellian, but we are still very far from the possibility of having Big Brother and a
1984 situation because of the limitations we set on our surveillance.
Big Brother used telescreens to monitor every citizen of London in order to make
them more efficient. Telescreens were perfect for the society presented in the novel as
they allowed Big Brother to watch and listen to everything. They have no limitations
since they are always on and no rules or laws are present against them. Another reason
why they were perfect for that society is that it would help Big Brother with his
Verkhovsky

2
totalitarian rule. The telescreen could pick up on any action or emotion that could be seen
as anti-party. Winston states that Your worst enemy, he reflected, was your own nervous
system (Orwell 56) while he was being watched by a telescreen. Winston had to control
his actions in order to hide his rebellious instinct against Big Brother. Simply not
working hard enough could land you in a lot of trouble as it did with Smith in the first
part of the book. The telescreen yelled at Smith to work harder which gave me a vibe that
they were using it to make the society more efficient. It was ironic that the one place that
Winston felt completely comfortable and safe, ended up having a telescreen inside.
Orwell did a great job in providing a sense of fear to the readers in the quote of It was
behind the picture, breathed Julia. It was behind the picture, said the voice (182). This
victory for Big Brother proves how effective their surveillance is on the efficiency of
their citizens.
In modern society, technology has tons of capabilities that go hand-to-hand with
tons of limitations. Law enforcement programs can scan e-mails for key words and
phrases, locate your exact position through tracking your phone, tap into your phone
conversations, access security cameras positioned in different parts of the city, access
private information through apps and viruses, and much more. Most of the capabilities
contain extremely strict limitations. For example, in the article Long Beach Police to
Use 400 Cameras Citywide to Fight Crime, the police station could only access the
cameras located throughout the city when police know an incident is unfolding in a
certain area (Winton 8) and goes on to state that it will make fighting crime more
efficient and safe. It turns out that the limits are quite small when the topic of call
locations comes up. According to Peter Maass and Megha Rajagopalans article Thats
Verkhovsky

3
no Phone. Thats My Tracker, cellphone companies have released the location to at least
1.3 million calls and often without search warrants. Most of the time it is the local police
departments that use the different possible forms of surveillance to keep people safe but
the government still plays a part. The Department of Homeland Security has access to
every single e-mail and searches for different key words to locate terrorists. Some
examples of the released list of key words include pork, cloud, team, Al Qaeda, and
Mexico. Our society would be a terrifying place if it had fewer limitations on our
surveillance technology.
The surveillance technologies in the novel and modern society have some
similarities and many differences. The capabilities are far more destructive in modern
society due to how detrimental they would be if the limitations were taken off. For
example, if The Department of Homeland Security decided to make affair a key word,
and imprison everyone who was unfaithful, it would be extremely easy especially if you
combine that information with phone records. Another difference is that 1984 has no
limitation while modern society is filled with an enormous amount of limitation on most
surveillance technologies. A similarity would is the reason behind surveillance, which is
efficiency. Local police want to use surveillance to make fighting crime and officer safety
more efficient while telescreens make the citizens of London work and think efficiently.
If there were a Big Brother watching us, then the best way would be to use burner phones
and toss them after you are done. That way, he would not be able to track you or match
the call to your name. The major differences are more important to note as they describe
the necessary precautions in making some aspects of society more efficient.
Verkhovsky

4
Modern society has seen an increased amount of innovation in surveillance
technology, which could fool some people into believing that we are becoming more
Orwellian just because of our increased capabilities. These individuals would be wrong
because of the limitations that our superb governmental system places on any new
innovation that could harm our privacy. One could argue that our government could
secretly use the technology to spy on us, but what that person must understand is that it
will be in our benefit. The government could possibly find out the location of a soon to be
terrorist attack, but at the same time they could come across an affair. One of the two is
miniscule and is not worth the effort to pursue while the other could save human lives.
The fact that it is possible to have a Big Brother scenario could be scary to some people,
but in the end our system of large limitations along with a democratic form of
government makes it nearly impossible.