From reading "1984", I have learned that many of our rights and freedoms could one day be taken away from us, all by the power of the government. However, even today there are some actions taken by the goverment in our country, that could lead to similar things from "1984" in our real future, and they are related to what is predicted in the story.
In "1984", in the society that Winson and everybody lives in, everybody has telescreens in all of their homes, and so the government can monitor their every move at all times. In a way, our homes could aslo be "monitored" daily as well, and it is because of something we have called the Patriot Act, which enables our own private home phone lines to be tapped. The police, FBI, or government can tune in on any of our conversations that we have via telephone, at any given time. This law was passed after September 11th, and the claim of this Act is simply to tap phones, to try and catch conversations with terrorists. However, there has also been debate that the Patriot Act is being abused, and that some of the wrong people at random, could have had their phones tapped. Also, in "1984" there are the thought police, and they can hear everybody think, and that is also just like our phones being tapped, since we can be heard speaking freely.
So with this, one could think of our phones being tapped in the same breath as the telescreens in "1984", because it invades privacy in the comfort of our homes, whether it be with visual, or just audio.
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Will: Interesting thoughts making the link to the Patriot Act. One concern that Orwell seems to be making is that if we allow the government to get too much power, then they could abuse it. How do we know the government is not tapping more phone calls than what they say?
If Orwell were alive today, what might he suggest we do in response to this issue?
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