1984 government control
...s this sound familiar? After reading this I couldn’t help but think about Orwell’s telescreen, the thought police, and Winston’s constant invasion of privacy. This is an example of how 1984 connects to the present day. After understanding what the Patriot Act does the next question one would ask is why is this a bad thing? If you are not doing anything wrong why should you be concerned? One way of answering these questions would be to think of what these initial “safety precautions” can lead to in the future. Although wire tapping may be a minor freedom to let go, this may lead to something larger such as cameras in every bodies houses. Small sacrifices of our freedom lead to larger ones. As we saw in 1984 the government completely controlled the peoples lives by constantly listening and watching what they were doing. In both the book and in the U.S. the government used fear to achieve there goals. In 1984 the government got control of the people, by using fear they were able to set restrictions on what the people do or even think. They did this be keeping the people paranoid, they were always thinking that their next door neighbor or even themselves were enemies of the Party. Therefore they would never want to commit any suspicious action or thought because of the fear of being convicted as an enemy of the Party. The U.S. used the same tactics to get the Patriot Act passed. Just six weeks after the devastation on September 11, during a time of fear, the Congress passed the Patriot Act. The government took advantage of a distraught nation to pass an Act that involves much more than just the war against foreign terrorist. The U.S. is continuing to use fear to pass Acts that would be near to impossible to pass without a nation that is terrified of another terrorist attack. The use of th...