I read George Orwell's \1984"" for the first time my sophomore year of high school. I listened intently as my teacher expounded on Orwell's hatred for communism and totalitarianism. I think I even wrote a fairly good essay on how Orwell's dark vision was what the world would look like if communism ever overcame the bastions of liberal democracy.
At that early age in life I was not yet skilled enough to recognize the difference between communism and totalitarianism. In my mind, they were one and the same. To Orwell, they were quite different. Orwell intentionally used Britain as the location of ""Big Brother"" to demonstrate a point. Totalitarianism is about excessive control of an individual's life by the state'and it can even occur in a democracy.
As our civil liberties come under fire from well-meaning security measures, it is vitally important to remember that the specter of ""1984"" did not die with communism. Any Western democracy is susceptible to the erosion of personal privacy. At times, such as the current terrorism scare, it may even seem like a good idea to curtail privacy in favor of security.
This is the motive behind suggestions from government officials and private organizations to expand the power of the government to ""listen in"" on private e-mails, phone conversations or public discussions. Under these new regulations, government does indeed become ""Big Brother"" by listening to all speech or monitoring all activities so that it can more effectively identify the ""bad"" speech or activity.
Think this couldn't happen in the United States? You are right. As it stands, this type of behavior can only happen if federal or state authorities already have evidence that suggests a threat to national security. Yet, the protection is not as absolute as you might believe. Most protections of privacy rely on state or federal statutes that can easily be changed or eliminated.
Despite these statutes, recent developments in technology suggest that ""Big Brother"" is not too far away. On Tuesday, a Florida technology company announced it had developed a computer chip that could be implanted underneath the skin to use as a form of identification. The technology is already available for pet owners who want a fail-safe way of identifying their lost pets.
A more Orwellian use for this technology suggests it could eventually track the movements of every individual in America. Instead of Winston worrying about being out of range of ""Big Brother's"" cameras, he would have to worry about when he would pass under the next satellite in geosyncronous orbit.
This technology is not yet ready to be applied for such Machiavellian uses, but there are developments in America that seem to be taken directly from one of Orwell's chapters. The Defense Department (which is thankfully not yet named the Peace Department) yesterday closed the relatively short-lived Office of Strategic Influence, which existed partly so the Defense Department could spread misinformation to foreign news services that would try to make the United States look like the Claudia Schiffer of the world community.
This action, of course, prompted scores of editorial cartoons and commentaries deriding the idea. However, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld still managed to maintain an indignant air when asked why he was closing the office. According to Rumsfeld, ""The office has clearly been so damaged that it is pretty clear to me that it could not function effectively.""
Never mind that the office's purpose was to spread false government propaganda. Who cares if the existence of such an office undermines the credibility of government-provided information that most of the major news agencies then relay to a national audience on TV and in the newspapers?
Orwell's vision of a totalitarian state in which the government knows every movement and thought of its people is creeping into this world's liberal democracies. Not only is the technology being developed to make Orwell's vision a reality, but governments seem more than willing to use that technology in the name of national security.
Margaret Thatcher, who was Britain's prime minister in 1984, proudly told the British people that Orwell's nightmarish vision of a communist-controlled world had never materialized. Yet, at the same time, Thatcher's government was debating whether to build a series of video cameras around London to monitor criminal activity. Today, those cameras crisscross Britain, generating mountains of tapes with the recorded activities of millions of people.
Was Thatcher right? Yes, the threat of communist domination was no longer realistic. However, in a world where computer chips could become the next monitoring device and governments are actively encouraging misinformation, it would seem like Orwell's vision lives on.
