Big Brother Is Watching You (The Conspiracies and truths of Government
Surveillance)
Have you ever used a social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or even an app on your phone? If yes, then you have probably been prompted to agree to the “terms and conditions” before using the app or service. Everything in the digital world comes with these certain “terms and conditions.” However, does anyone ever take the time to read the contracts and realize what they are agreeing to? Most people are unaware of the things they are agreeing to for the sake of using the app or social media. Most of these are agreements to allow third party viewers record your activity and information including pictures, private information, viewing history, and even in the case of Gamestation in 2009, the “agreement to grant [the company] a non-transferable option to claim, now and for ever more, your immortal soul”(Bosker). Are these terms real? And most importantly, who is watching us?
In the book
“1984” by George Orwell, a dystopian
future is described where the government has taken full control of its people.
1984 is not just about totalitarianism; it makes the reader live through
totalitarianism(Orwell). In the book, The Party wants power for its own sake.
The Party carefully monitors the behavior of all of its constituents. Morning
group exercises are mandatory. The Party demands that all loyalty created in
private be severed, and that the only acceptable loyalty is loyalty to the
Party. The Party condemns sex, and brainwashes its constituents. The Party
recognizes no concept of a "family" other than the collective family
under rule by the Party. The Party controls everything — the past, the present,
and the future — by controlling historical records, language, and even thought.
The Party tortures and "vaporizes" those who harbor rebellious
thoughts. The state suffers through constant warfare. The conditions are
dilapidated, but the citizens do not know better. Classism exists everywhere,
and different classes generally do not socialize with each other. The
government maintains control by changing history records to fit its needs, and
keeping the people under surveillance.
It is surprising to note that while
this book was written in 1949, it has managed to stay relevant to audiences
throughout time because of its message about power and technology. This book
had been a major success and was used as a method of reminding people to fear a
government with absolute power. In fact, it is still heavily referenced in pop
culture today. Many who read this book were left with the impression that the
government was to be kept from ever doing the things found in the book. This
created a sense of doubt and cynicism against the government.
Eventually,
conspiracies that the government was actively listening and recording its
constituents began appearing more often. Conspiracists claimed that we were are all under
surveillance. That we were being watched. The 1974 film “The Conversation” depicted a professional wire tapper who has
the ability to listen in on anyone, anywhere, at anytime. Despite popular
belief, the film in itself was not a conspiracy. However, since the film was
released to theaters just a few months before Richard Nixon resigned as
President, he felt that audiences interpreted the film to be a reaction to the
Watergate scandal. For the past century government surveillance was only a
conspiracy theory.
However, a
man named Edward Snowden made major headlines on May 20, 2013, Snowden flew to Hong
Kong after leaving his job at an NSA facility in Hawaii and in early June he
revealed thousands of classified NSA documents to journalists Glenn Greenwald,
Laura Poitras and Ewen MacAskill. Edward Snowden exposed thousands of classified
American National Security Agency documents, sparking a global conversation
about citizens' rights to privacy on the Internet. The idea that someone was
collecting data about our “phone calls, email messages, friends, contacts, and
how [we] spend [our] days” was no longer a conspiracy—it became real life
threat(Edward Snowden, Whistle-blower). This initiated the debate on wether
Snowden’s decision to expose he government
was out of self interest or wether he was acting on a heroic cause.
Edward Snowden currently faces, “Three criminal charges including two under the
1917 Espionage Act”(1) but many believe he deserves to have his case reanalyzed
since his actions have not caused any harm to public safety.
Many
critics point out that Snowden was acting upon self interest and simply wanted
attention. Critics claim that he could have brought up the NSA files to
congress instead of making such a public maneuver. However, Snowden claims that
prior to leaking the NSA files, he was torn between keeping silence or exposing
what he was witnessing to the American public. Snowden says that:
It is like the boiling frog, you get
exposed to a little bit of evil, a little bit of rule-breaking, a little bit of
dishonesty, a little bit of deceptiveness, a little bit of disservice to the
public interest, and you can brush it off, you can come to justify it. But if
you do that, it creates a slippery slope that just increases over time, and by
the time you’ve been in 15 years, 20 years, 25 years, you’ve seen it all and it
doesn’t shock you. And so you see it as normal.(Edward Snowden,
Whistle-Blower.)
Snowden decided it was time to hop out of the water before
he too, “was boiled alive.” Snowden said that he faced an inner struggle and
had a hard time deciding how he was going to leak the NSA files. He thought
about using the “proper” way and trying to go to a supreme court to rule the
NSA activities illegal. However, He knew that if he did this, then the
government would try to stall the process and possibly find a way to disclaim
his argument by the time it reached the supreme court. Instead, Snowden relied
on the power of journalists to aid him in creating awareness for government
surveillance.
The
question most people are asking is: Is Snowden a hero or a traitor? Some claim
that Snowden is a traitor because he violated the trust the CIA, NSA, and his bosses had
entrusted him with to keep the information a secret. Snowden was supposed to
keep secrets as a technical contractor at the CIA and the NSA. As an employee
he was obligated to listen to his bosses even if he disagreed. However, by
deciding to unilaterally leak secret NSA documents, Snowden betrayed that
trust. Although the information that Snowden leaked was important and probably
should at some point be known to Americans, he still betrayed the very organizations
that are trying to protect the US, critics state that by betraying the
organizations that were trying to
protect Americans, Snowden put all of us in danger.
On the
other hand, his supporters argue that an American nation should be proud of having such kind of
personalities. Snowden was not afraid to stand against most powerful mechanism
of oppression to struggle for the principles he believed in. It confirms that
the principles of democracy are not idle things for society in the United
States. His supporters argue that Edward Snowden exposed us to all that our government had been, and is still
doing to people across the globe.
Today, new
conspiracies surrounding the NSA activities have been born. Some very likely,
some not at all, and some that are already proven true. For example, It was
believed that there was an organization of countries who were above the law and
could spy on anyone. This was actually proven true when Edward Snowden revealed a secret organization named
Five Eyes. He revealed that Five Eyes was a "supra-national intelligence organization that doesn't answer to
the known laws of its own countries (Norddeutscher).” Documents leaked by Snowden in
2013 revealed that the FVEY have been spying on one another's citizens and
sharing the collected information with each other in order to circumvent
restrictive domestic regulations on surveillance of citizens. However not all
conspiracies are as likely. Some wild conspiracies claim that The rise in mass
surveillance of human thinking and activity is believed to be intimately linked
with the government creating predictive behavior technologies, and forms of
mind control as tactics that will be used to silence those against it
(Handley). Conspiracy theorists claim that Government agencies are attempting
to destroy humanity’s potential for liberation and free thinking by way of
studying the brain’s inner mechanics and attempting to disrupt the carrier
signals, synaptic connections, or other neural pathways that allow for
creativity and the proper dissemination and flow of information. 
While most
conspiracies never come to be proved true, now we have the resources and
information to validate the conspiracy of government surveillance. Many believed that a government like
that of George Orwell’s mind would never come to exist; that it was just a
conspiracy. To date, there is no legislation that has dealt with the policies
that permit government agencies and corporations to abuse personal data. While
it is unlikely that the government is trying to control our minds, it is trying
to control our right to privacy. Websites can claim ownership to our private
information simply by accepting the “terms and conditions.” However, this is a
case were we can no longer plead ignorance. We know what is really happening
now. The only question left is— do we agree to the terms?
Citations
Bosker, Bianca. "7,500 Online
Shoppers Accidentally Sold Their Souls To Gamestation." The Huffington
Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 17 June 2010. Web. 20 Sept. 2015.
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/17/gamestation-grabs-souls-o_n_541549.html>.
Dean, M., & Orwell, G. (2008).
1984. Harlow: Pearson Education.
"Edward Snowden, Whistle-Blower." The New York Times, 2014. Web.
13 Oct. 2015.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/02/opinion/edward-snowden-whistle-blower.html?_r=0>.
Handley, A. (2014, March 23). 10
Insane Conspiracy Theories About The New World Order - Listverse. Retrieved December 7, 2015, from
http://listverse.com/2014/03/24/10-insane-conspiracy-theories-about-the-new-world-order/
Norddeutscher, R.
(2014, January 26). Snowden-Interview: Transcript (Seite 2). Retrieved December 7, 2015, from http://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/netzwelt/snowden277_page-2.html
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Big
Brother in 1984." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 8
Dec. 2015.
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