Security Agency In 1984 By George Orwell

“Big Brother” is the term for the ever-present totalitarian government in the society portrayed in 1984 by George Orwell. This government watched and listened to its citizens by way of telescreens in every room and was in complete control of the countries’ history. They even controlled everything that what was shown on the telescreens. Though this type of control may seem insane, it is actually happening in America today in forms that are not so different than those we see in the novel. The United States government is using its citizens’ personal information for counterterrorism purposes; however, the NSA is monitoring americans’ phone and internet communications, and they are using the media to influence their citizens’ beliefs, therefore
In 1984, the totalitarian government monitored the every move of its citizens to “watch out for spies” or seek out anyone who went against the Party. The United States government has been proven to use personal information from large databases such as Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and Apple to search for suspicious activity. Despite this, when searching these databases the government must practice anonymization. This prevents some abuses by “making it possible for the government to get the information relevant to its particularized suspicion without learning anything about the rest of the database” (Paul Rosenzweig, Heritage Foundation). Using information like this allows the government to find out information much quicker, such as where the suspect is living, how they communicate, and what licenses they have. Though using people’s personal information is an extreme form of government control, it has allowed investigators to identify the non-obvious relationships between terrorists and use that information to form a better defense against national
The citizens take the words that come from the screens as gospel and never question it, though most of what the screens say are lies. This is not so different from America’s situation with the media. People are surrounded by media all the time, whether it is the internet, T.V., or radio. Society puts their trust in major media companies like CNN or CBS and trusts in what information these companies report. A recent study in the UK was testing how media influences society's beliefs. They used the subject of the longitudinal effects of climate change. “Those who had been least exposed to the subject were most open to adjusting their views and conversely those who arrived at the groups with most exposure were least likely to have their opinions changed by the new information. This was the case even if the information they had been exposed to was polarised, or inaccurate” (Catherine Happer and Greg Philo). Like this experiment proved, when humans are repeatedly exposed to certain information, they become firm in their beliefs or what the information means. Americans see government-produced information all the time on the news that portrays certain things as being beneficial to society or in the citizens’ best interest. The american people are unknowingly brainwashed (not unlike 1984) into believing whatever the government wants them