Is privacy a right or a privilege?

The following work discusses the tension between privacy and massive surveillance in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and also compares it to the twenty-first-century scenario.

Privacy and why it matters

Privacy is an individual right to perform actions or keep information secretly or simply out of unwanted intrusion. Therefore, it entails freedom to keep personal activities or matters away from any kind of spying mechanism or data-gathering process, which is the area where tensions between privacy and life in society rise as most modern social systems rely on the register of human activities in order to keep the population under control and in line with specific ethical standards (depending on the local culture).

Probably one of the most vivid examples of the tension between privacy and governmental control is seen in Orwell's 1984, where an omnipresent dystopian totalitarian system keeps of track of every single movement performed by all members of two of the three social classes in order to prevent an uprising and any other form of intellectual emancipation (the activities from the third and lowest social level are regarded as irrelevant because 'the proles' are not believed to be be capable of revolting).

In the aforementioned novel, privacy for members of both the inner and the outer party (upper and middle classes respectively) is almost -if not completely- non-existent because all urban and some rural areas are full of microphones and 'telescreens', which are technological devices that record all human activities, like security cameras, in order to provide members of the government with a highly-detailed register of step-by-step civilian behaviour (they also broadcast carefully prepared political propaganda and other brainwashing contents).

The protagonist of the novel, Winston Smith, knows very well the way in which telescreens work because he has got a job in a governmental department and he has, like most middle-class people, experienced the threatening presence of these devices. Therefore, he tries to avoid them or pretend in front of them in order to safeguard the remains of his privacy as much as possible, essentially because his actions and thoughts were subjected to the scrutiny of oppressive laws (specially when he little-by-little starts to adopt a rebellious political stance). The following extract of the novel clearly shows Winston's apprehensions towards telescreens:

[...]

As soon as he saw what the photograph was, and what it meant, he had covered it up with another sheet of paper. Luckily, when he unrolled it, it had been upside-down from the point of view of the telescreen.

He took his scribbling pad on his knee and pushed back his chair so as to get as far away from the telescreen as possible. To keep your face expressionless was not difficult, and even your breathing could be controlled, with an effort: but you could not control the beating of your heart, and the telescreen was quite delicate enough to pick it up. He let what he judged to be ten minutes go by, tormented all the while by the fear that some accident—a sudden draught blowing across his desk, for instance—would betray him.

(I.6.100)

[Highlighting mine]

As seen on the extract above, people like Winston would be scared of being in front of these tracking devices because any mistake in their actions (anything suspicious) would make them risk their lives, and it could be even worse: torture was a regular consequence of political trials. Additionally, it was impossible for people to know if they were being monitored or not as workers behind the telescreens would pay attention to different 'transmissions' in random turns and/or following planned schedules oriented to follow specific individuals who may have been caught in suspicious behaviour. Therefore, sometimes nobody may have been behind the telescreen in front of certain civilians yet they never knew and so they were in a constant state of worry. This violation of privacy is not exclusive to 1984; it is also a common threat in the twenty-first century, as discussed by Greenwald in reference to the operations held by governmental organisations, like the National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States:

Invoking George Orwell’s 1984 is something of a cliché, but the echoes of the world about which he warned in the NSA’s surveillance state are unmistakable: both rely on the existence of a technological system with the capacity to monitor every citizen’s actions and words. The similarity is denied by the surveillance champions—we’re not always being watched, they say—but that argument misses the point. In 1984, citizens were not necessarily monitored at all times; in fact, they had no idea whether they were ever actually being monitored. But the state had the capability to watch them at any time. It was the uncertainty and possibility of ubiquitous surveillance that served to keep everyone in line.

(Greenwald 17)

Consequently, Orwell's predictions about future oppression (including privacy violation) are not far from nowadays reality. Instead, they are very similar to what people are currently coping with, specially on the streets and on the internet. For that matter, closed-circuit television cameras monitor people on the street and websites track users on the Internet.

Apart from focusing on the importance of privacy as a way to survive (as discussed in previous paragraphs), Orwell also presents privacy as an expression of individual freedom and peace, and as a necessary part of the life of people who love each other. Therefore, the following excerpts of 1984 will be presented along with their relevance in terms of privacy in the beginning and development of the relationship of Winston and Julia, another member of the party who Winston meets and loves during the course of the story.

The paragraph below describes the beginning of their relationship: Julia falls down (internationally) and Winston helps her. Then, she gives him a piece of paper in which she confessed her love:

And with that she walked on in the direction in which she had been going, as briskly as though it had really been nothing. The whole incident could not have taken as much as half a minute. Not to let one’s feelings appear in one’s face was a habit that had acquired the status of an instinct, and in any case they had been standing straight in front of a telescreen when the thing happened. Nevertheless it had been very difficult not to betray a momentary surprise, for in the two or three seconds while he was helping her up the girl had slipped something into his hand.

(I.6.134)

[Highlighting mine]

The authoritarian government has prohibited love for those who belong to its political party. Therefore, they cannot show their feelings in front a telescreen, which constitutes a clear obstacle for the regular course of their individual privacy as beings capable of feeling and for their love relationship as they cannot express their feelings freely.

At the sight of the words “I LOVE YOU” the desire to stay alive had welled up in him, and the taking of minor risks suddenly seemed stupid. It was not till twenty-three hours, when he was home and in bed—in the darkness, where you were safe even from the telescreen so long as you kept silent—that he was able to think continuously.

(I.6.138)

[Highlighting mine]

The previous extract lets the reader know that privacy had been reduced so much that people had to think of their feelings and affections before sleeping as their houses had telescreens. Similarly, as love was forbidden and everyone was constantly being spied, the right to meet someone privately had already been lost:

The physical difficulty of meeting was enormous. It was like trying to make a move at chess when you were already mated. Whichever way you turned, the telescreen faced you.

(I.6.138)

[Highlighting mine]

As a consequence, those who wanted to meet their loved ones had to look for places in which tracking devices are distant enough not to hear them:

Presumably she could be trusted to find a safe place. In general you could not assume that you were much safer in the country than in London. There were no telescreens, of course, but there was always the danger of concealed microphones by which your voice might be picked up and recognized; besides, it was not easy to make a journey by yourself without attracting attention.

(II.2.148)

[Highlighting mine]

In the paragraph above, it is also implied that the freedom to move from one place to another, like going from the city to the countryside, was tossed aside as well, because it was suspicious and everyone is followed by the eyes of the government. Then, the need to find a place to hide becomes stronger as the characters become more critical of the official security measures, which, again, proves the importance of privacy.

The process of life had ceased to be intolerable, he had no longer any impulse to make faces at the telescreen or shout curses at the top of his voice. Now that they had a secure hiding-place, almost a home, it did not even seem a hardship that they could only meet infrequently and for a couple of hours at a time.

(II.5.189)

[Highlighting mine]

As seen on different parts of this novel, privacy is an essential human right, particularly because it gives people the chance to act freely, without having to fear oppression or further consequences. Therefore, as pointed out previously, it is equally important in the post-2000 era. Going back to the WEB 2.0 times, the relevance of privacy can even be explained from the perspective of those who oppress:

The importance of privacy is evident in the fact that even those who devalue it, who have declared it dead or dispensable, do not believe the things they say. Anti-privacy advocates have often gone to great lengths to maintain control over the visibility of their own behavior and information. The US government itself has used extreme measures to shield its actions from public view, erecting an ever-higher wall of secrecy behind which it operates.

[…]

Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg purchased the four homes adjacent to his own in Palo Alto, at a cost of $30 million, to ensure his privacy.

(Greenwald 13)

Regardless of time and culture, privacy matters. Furthermore, some experts believe that even Anonymity is fundamental in certain digital contexts (specialised environments such as health, as presented by Peng:

Anonymity is a fundamental right of a democratic society. In most democratic nations, anonymity is very important and the laws and government regulations have been set up to protect information privacy in every aspect of society including the fast-developing computer and communication network.

[...]

Many participants of network applications like e-finance, e-commerce and e-health want to conceal their activity and identity so that their personal privacy can be protected. In some other applications like e-voting the participants do not want their identities to be linked to their activities.

(Peng 3)

Massive surveillance: the biggest violation of privacy

Conducted by governments and companies, surveillance is a process of data-collection for specific purposes (control, intelligence, business, security, etc). It usually involves some sort of technology or mechanism, which are essential if the institution is to track a lot of people. Therefore, it neglects people's privacy by stealing their personal information and/or by following their activities on a specific context. These days, online surveillance is the clearest example: public and private institutions follow the internet activity in order to create huge databases with profiles that are later sold or archived for governmental intelligences.

As presented previously, in 1984, Big Brother, the maximum political authority, has bundled an ever-growing system fed by hidden microphones and telescreens in order to control people and prevent them organising themselves:

On each landing, opposite the lift-shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran.

(I.1.3)

Twenty-first-century telescreens are computers of all kinds: desktop computers, laptops, mobile phones, tablets, video-game consoles, etc. Then, the internet is surrounded by malicious software (like spyware) capable of recording and tracking the activities performed by citizens all around the world. It usually seeks to satisfy the evil purposes described three paragraphs above and it generally involves huge amounts of money. Also, surveillance grows out of ignorance (people do not know about it) and greed (entire companies base their business on spying internet users and they earn high sums).

Every day the information grows as much as the population does, therefore, the databases generated out of massive surveillance will only become bigger and bigger:

With the increase in the sophistication and the reduction of the cost of bulk surveillance that has happened over the past ten years, we’re now at a stage where the human population is doubling every

twenty-five years or so—but the capacity of surveillance is doubling every eighteen months. The surveillance curve is dominating the population curve. There is no direct escape. We’re now at the stage

where just $10 million can buy you a unit to permanently store the mass intercepts of a medium sized country. So I wonder if we need an equivalent response. This really is a big threat to democracy and

to freedom all around the world that needs a response, like the threat of atomic war needed a mass response, to try and control it, while we still can.

(Assange 46-47)

  

 

As a conclusion, today's violation of privacy is as terrible as the one from 1984.

References:

Assange, Julian et al. "Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet." London: OR Books, 9 Jan. 2013. Print.

Greenwald, Glenn. "No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State." London: Penguin Books, 13 May. 2014. Print.

Lyon, David. “Surveillance, Snowden, and Big Data: Capacities, consequences, critique.” London: Big Data & Society, 4 Dec. 2014. Print.

- - -. "Fear, Surveillance, and Consumption." The Hedgehog Review Vol. 5, NO.3 (Fall 2003). Print.

Orwell, George. "1984 (Signet Classics)." United States: Signet Classic, 1 Jan. 1961. Print.

Peng, Kun. "Anonymous Communication Networks: Protecting Privacy on the Web." Boca Raton: Auerbach Publications, 7 Apr. 2014. Print.