Journal #9: This is a Public Service Announcement

My one-word critique of this novel, Little Brother, is, “Wow.” The first thing that came to mind was the movie, V for Vendetta. The same way that “V” wanted the public to put fear into the government is the same way that Marcus wanted the “Xnet” users to put fear into the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The technique that Marcus used to lead the other users on “Xnet” was absolutely ingenious. His excessive paranoia was the one thing that kept him one step ahead of DHS. Then I asked myself what is it that our government does that makes us feel like we are criminals or terrorists. I came up with a list of things that the government does that makes us feel like we are no longer U.S. citizens. My list includes, jury duty, red light cameras (traffic cameras), airport security, wiretapping, and illegal internet surveillance. If you pay attention to the types of surveillance that they use to keep tabs on the public in Little Brother, then you would realize that our government uses the same things, which makes the reality of this novel really scary.

The first item to talk about would be jury duty. It seems like anyone who does not show up for jury duty is scrutinized. And if people don’t show up for jury duty, then the court will send out a body attachment and place that person in jail. Now, if anyone were to ask me about this situation, I would respond that it sounds like they (meaning the judges, meaning government officials) who are suppose to be upholding the law are sending more innocent people to jails, which are already overcrowded all because of a missed jury duty session. This just goes to show that the government is optimally taking advantage of your freedom to do as you choose with your time. This seems unfair because it feels like the person who was called for jury duty is missing out on a day’s paycheck because some other individual felt the need to break the law. However, the jurors are forced to use their own time and energy to listen and render judgment on the case. I know several people who absolutely despise being called for jury duty and I, for one, agree with them.

The second thing the government uses to keep tabs on U.S. citizens as if they were a bunch of law-breaking criminals is a red light camera. This I find to be an absolute pain and is as invasive as other forms of public surveillance, or “Big Brother,” for lack of a better term. Intelligence agencies use “Big Brother” to monitor and report on activities across multiple nodes in a network. This means that all the law enforcement and intelligence agencies have their hands in everything. I find this to be a huge problem because it is an invasion of privacy. Whether people are on the internet or at work or simply walking down the street, all of it is recorded and invades what little privacy we may think we have.

Thirdly, airport security remains on as high an alert as it was after September 11th. The method that airport security uses to interrogate and invade the privacy of U.S. citizens makes you want to lock them up. I had a friend that was traveling to Italy. When he got to Italy, the security man told him that he did not look Italian. And my friend’s reply was something smart like, “Well you don’t really look like white, either.” So they took him into an interrogation room and told him to strip naked, and then they did a cavity search on him. They did it because they could and not because they thought he looked suspicious. My friend said that he had never felt more violated in his life. He was absolutely outraged. There was also another incident involving a student in my ethics class who is Indian. He was not wearing any attire that would indicate that he was Islamic or Muslim. Yet the airport security police automatically chose him for a random security check because they said that he looked suspicious. However, after they searched him, they could find no reason to hold him. So now when he travels out of the U.S., he wears a shirt that says, “I am not a terrorist I just look like one.” So making fun of the situation is his way of dealing with the whole terrorist issue.

Illegal wiretapping is also another form of “Big Brother.” People have to be in a constant state of paranoia about that feeling that every word they say on the telephone is being recorded. This is no way to live. We are supposed to be in “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” And the sad part is citizens have no recourse but to conform to this form of invasion of their privacy. But this is one change that the U.S. public is hoping will be accomplished when there is a change in the Presidency. The public believes that Barack Obama will keep his promise to listen to them about eliminating illegal wiretapping. U.S. citizens will have their voices heard once Obama is sworn into office on January 20, 2009. CROSS YOUR FINGERS.

And this concludes our public service announcement.