1984 revisited

During my freshman year here at VCU I had to read George Orwell’s classic “1984” for my utopian fiction class. At the time I was willing to dismiss the notion of an all-encompassing police state as science fiction. After all, with all of the freedoms we enjoy as American citizens, the idea is rather alien, and besides 1984 had came and went without such drastic measures being put into place by our government.

Perhaps I should have remembered that things such as: going to the moon, airplanes, elevators, escalators and personal computers, among countless other ideas, were once considered science fiction. While this gives me hope that we’re only a few years away from lightsabers and faster-than-light travel, I also have reason to worry that Orwell wasn’t wrong about the nature of the future, just when it would occur.

As reported by Rene Sanchez, a Washington Post Staff Writer, on Washingtonpost.com, “the USA Patriot Act, swiftly approved by Congress after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, gives federal investigators greater authority to examine all book and computer records at libraries. The law requires investigators to get search warrants from a federal court before seizing library records, but those proceedings are secret and not subject to appeal. It also forbids libraries from informing patrons that their reading and computer habits are being monitored by the government” (www.washingtonpost.com). The logic behind this provision of the Patriot Act is that several of the hijackers used library computers for communication and that current proceedings to obtain records from libraries slowed down investigations.

Does this expanded power send a chill down anyone else’s spine? I can’t help but wonder if the power of this law would even crack open record access here at our own James Branch Cabell Library. Not that I think federal investigators would have any more luck finding things here than the average college student.

While I understand the idea that spawned the act, and am for the idea of a safer America, I do not think allowing this kind of power to be exercised by the government is the answer.

A feeling, according to the article, shared by librarians across the country taking steps to oppose the act in various ways, such as destroying records and informing patrons of potential government monitoring. This feeling, in the view of the Justice Department, is exaggerated. “We’re not going after the average American,” said Mark Corallo, a Justice Department spokesman. “We’re only going after the bad guys. We respect the right to privacy. If you’re not a terrorist or a spy, you have nothing to worry about” (www.washingtonpost.com).

In an ideal world, perhaps it would be true that we have nothing to worry about. This, however, is not an ideal world and I cannot help but remember the adage “power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Furthermore, one only has to look back to the era of McCarthy to find instances of the government abusing its powers with the “average American” caught in the fallout.

Now with the war in Iraq capturing the top spots in the news, it is even more imperative that we keep the government in check at home by keeping a close eye on it because Big Brother is most definitely watching us.