Essay on Big Brother
-by Sebastien Fisher

Big brother was the term for the authoritarian government system in George Orwell’s famous book 1984. Today we use Big Brother to refer to the surveillance system, or a society in which its citizens are under constant surveillance. Right now our system isn’t too far from the one George Orwell thought up.
“There was, of course, no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. … But at any rate, they would plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live–did live, from habit that became instinct–in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.”–George Orwell, 1984
The American and British surveillance systems, supposedly the best in the world, are nearing the epitome of George Orwell’s idea.
The Bush Administration in America, for example, has ordered the NSA (National Security Agency) to conduct unwarranted surveillance of American citizens. Three major corporations—AT&T, Sprint, and MCI—are already known to be in cooperation with this plan. These companies have allowed the NSA to intercept thousands of telephone calls, fax messages, and e-mails without warrants. Some companies have given the NSA a direct hookup to their huge databases of communications records. Of course, the NSA only uses all this data to track communication to or from suspected “terrorists” or “terrorist sympathizers”.
You’d be surprised to know how much of what you do on an everyday basis gets screened, monitored, tracked, scanned, and observed—often without your ever knowing it.
Peter Wayner, a computer programmer from Baltimore who has written several books about online safety & protocol says, “It’s all part of the general evaporation of privacy.”
The Justice Department of the USA has obtained records of millions of anonymous, random searches made on Microsoft, Yahoo!, and AOL. Supposedly these records are kept to stop the spreading of child pornography and other internet crimes. Keeping in mind that every internet search we make is being kept record of by the Justice Department of the USA, we should most carefully watch where we click. While the Justice Department has raised eyebrows and prompted some search engine users to worry where their queries will end up, experts predict that people won’t change their habits.
These are just a few of the examples of the American Big Brother-like system. In Britain surveillance is just as bad, if not worse.
Britain is become the first country in the world where the movements of all vehicles on the roads are recorded. A new national surveillance system holds the records for at least two years.
Using a network of cameras that can automatically read every passing number plate, the plan is to build a huge database of vehicle movements so that the police and security services can analyze any journey a driver has made over several years.
The network incorporates thousands of existing cameras which can read number plates automatically night and day to provide 24/7 coverage of all motorways and main roads, as well as towns, cities, ports and gas stations.
There is a central database that stores the details of 35 million number-plate “reads” per day. These includes time, date and precise location, with camera sites monitored by GPS (Global Positioning Satellites).
There are plans to extend the database by increasing the storage period to five years and by linking thousands of additional cameras so that details of up to 100 million number plates can be fed each day into the central databank.
After reading all this about American and British surveillance, one begins to consider what all this information entails. Consider this perfectly normal scenario: You wake up, take a shower and get dressed, then before you go to work you check your e-mails, or even just go to a website. No matter how you log onto the Web, all of your internet activity can be traced because of your computer’s IP (Internet Protocol) address. IP address information travels along the network of your ISP (Internet Service Provider), which acts as a conduit between your computer and the Web.
Now you head for work, you take the Interstate and go through an E-Z Pass toll lane. E-Z Pass knows you were there, the transponder that was placed on your windshield is read by a sensor as you pass through.
Then just before you get to your office, your cell phone rings. If you have your cell phone on, your location is known to the phone company. Even when you’re not using it, it’s constantly pinging to the nearest cell tower to say, ‘I’m here! This is my number.’”
You arrive at work. You go to your cubicle. Your movements are tracked from the moment you enter the building by surveillance cameras. Perhaps they were inside the dark glass half bubbles you saw on the ceiling. Department stores, government buildings, and hospitals are known to use such devices.
It’s time for lunch. Why not charge the meal on your credit card? Among the folks who know what you ate for lunch: the restaurant, your credit card company, the bank that handles the restaurant’s credit card account, and the bank that issued your credit card.
Now you drive back to the office. If you live in the city, most likely you’ve been viewed by a least 20 surveillance cameras before you get back to the office.
You finish work, and drive home. Your day ends. Fall asleep with little worry about how you’ve been “followed” throughout the day.
This is the reality that surrounds us every day. Big Brother is watching you.