The Patriot Act and 1984 by George Orwell Essay

Just by saying there are no rules, people are free to express what they feel, and everyone has freedom of speech doesn’t make it true. The Patriot Act and 1984 by George Orwell prove that these statements are completely false. People of a higher power may tell the population that new rules are for “security” and “nothing will harm them,” but all of these assurances are lies. Sure, they make everyone “feel” better about what is going on, but citizens should hear the truth and have a voice in decisions that involve them, as the law clearly states (“U.

S. Constitution vs. The Patriot Act”).

Both the Patriot Act and 1984 use surveillance for the wrong reasons; stealing the population’s freedom and security. After the tragedy of 9/11, millions of Americans felt vulnerable and traumatized. People wanted greater safety measures and needed to know they were secure. This was the government’s chance to gain more power, and they created legislation known as the Patriot Act.

The main purposes of this law are to prevent and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around the world and to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools (“Bill Summary & Status”).

After people heard about this new law, many were all for it until they heard what this act truly allows the government to do. The Patriot Act permits the violation of lives, which denies citizens their freedom. This new law lets the government search anyone’s home, tap into people’s phone calls, and observe what the population is searching on the internet all without a search warrant. (“Bill Summary & Status”) The Patriot Act may be portrayed as a new mode of security, but really, in the end, the government is just gaining more and more power each and every day.

This Act really matches up to Orwell’s novel, 1984. In the book, the population is governed by Big Brother and the Party. Everyone’s individualism is ripped away; no one can ever be alone, and someone is always watching their every move. is exemplified when the dystopian protagonist, Winston Smith, exclaims “The telescreens could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off” (Orwell 2). This quotation explains that in the novel, someone was always monitoring the citizens by using the telescreens.

The telescreens could watch all the citizens and even control them to wake up and do the exercises worked by the Physical Jerks. This relates to the Patriot Act today because people never know when the government or investigators are tapping into their phone calls or examining their internet usage (“What Is the USA Patriot Web”). So the population doesn’t even have the power to be able to ensure a private phone call, and what they research on the internet is no longer their own business (“US Constitution vs. The Patriot Act”).

The next quote from Orwell’s novel that shows the how the government uses surveillance in the wrong way is “There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment” (Orwell 6). In the book, every citizen is watched by so many forms of surveillance that they always have to be on guard. There are the Thought Police, telescreens, and the spies. No one is ever safe in Oceania. This relates to the Patriot Act also because any person in the United States of America has no idea if and when he is being watched and reported on (“Bill Summary & Status”).

This type of uncertainty just isn’t fair to citizens. Living in a country where you have to be watchful of yourself is scary. The population of the USA is being backstabbed by its country, just like the citizens of Oceania in 1984. People should have the freedom they were told they would have from the beginning (“US Constitution vs. The Patriot Act”). No one deserves to be afraid in their own home, never knowing when they will be watched or who could possibly barge in without notice.

In every government, there are new laws and announcements created or envisioned every day. No one can predict what might come next. Those against the Patriot Act feel that it brought down the amount of freedom we had, and what’s coming next will not be pretty. They believe that the government will always be craving more authority and control and will do anything to get it. In this view, soon enough all of the citizen’s freedom will be gone as we know it, and the lives of many will represent the life of Winston Smith in 1984.