“We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it”. ~ 1984 by George Orwell
As a child growing up in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s I witnessed first-hand the birth of the internet and it felt like a sci-fi novel come true. Most people born in the Internet age don’t appreciate what it means to send a message from a laptop in West Palm Beach Florida to someone over 3,000 miles away in Sacramento California. With the click of a few keys and the press of a button and whoosh, your innermost thoughts are broadcast into a sea of thirsty minds and hungry hearts. It was this mechanism that had given the free thinkers hope. Finally, we were able to connect, share information, and build a community that could not be policed or disrupted due to the nature of the early internet. It was a mesh network of individuals, as soon as one computer or website went down, ten more popped up in its place.
It was what some called the collective consciousness, a web of thoughts and ideas that allowed both bad and good thoughts to meet the eyes of millions. It was a place where the free exchange of idea’s meant only the best ideas could flourish and the terrible ones went off to die in the eternal ethers of the boundless internet. This kind of reach was what made the internet so wonderful, so powerful, and yet, so dangerous.
Then came the money.
As the internet grew in popularity, progressive companies like Jeff Besos’s Amazon began to recognize the virtually infinite money that could be made from the internet with very little work required. Although not yet disruptive, the initial tech boom on the internet would forever carve out the inner workings of today’s omnipresent surveillance system.
Once Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Twitter and others began to reap the benefits, it was soon found out that the internet had more than just money to offer. No, the internet was becoming the prevailing force of the world. The very thing that not only tied us together but also the thing that kept our daily lives running smoothly. Rapidly, the internet morphed from a fun hobby to a thing of necessity. So much so that your life cannot exist as you know it without the internet and the many side effects that come with it.
Want to pay a bill? You need the internet for that. Want to get a job? You need the internet for that, no one takes walk-in applications, no one wants a handwritten resume. Want to keep up in the marketplace of careers? You need the internet for that. Want to drive your new Tesla, or turn on the tv? You guessed it; you need the internet for those things too. Lost your job and want to apply for unemployment or send a message to a loved one? You need the internet. The internet has now become almost something like an extension of the self in that regard. Not having the internet in modern society is almost akin to cutting a piece of yourself off and feeding it to the wolves, without it, you are nothing (at least in mainstream society).
That notion wasn’t just an unfortunate truth however, the powerful companies also quickly realized that the internet was what kept people alive, it was what kept goods moving, what got food to your grocery store or even to your front door. The internet was the thing keeping hospitals running, police systems working, and most insidious of all, the internet was the thing that could influence the thoughts of entire generations without them even realizing it.
Big Brother, Big Tech
Whether you’ve read 1984 or not, you likely already know the quality of Big Brother in the world of 1984. An omnipresent machine, something which records, recognizes, and spits out the will of whoever controls it. In several scenes, the main character, Winston Smith, sits at home before his prescribed job, he sits before a large screen in the middle of his home. This screen spits out the daily propaganda and records his reactions and behavior to said propaganda. Much like George Orwell’s vision of the “screen” so too does the internet of today act similarly. Yet, what most do not realize is the Big Brother of today is more hidden, more secretive, more “in the shadows” about its surveillance operations.
Your Online Footprint
It first began with your computer browser. As Big Tech grew in power, they also sought ways to record, analyze, and influence your online behavior. The invention of online tracking tools like “cookies” and browser data was silently introduced to watch your behavior online. If you visit a webpage, how often do you visit? What parts of the website do you look at the most? How long do you spend there, do you tell anyone about what you saw there? These kinds of questions are all captured within this online system under the guise of selling you more products. Yet, of course, the government was watching. The opportunity to monitor the most interactive of behaviors was capitalized upon and deals quickly made where companies could track your behavior on the internet, hand it over to the government, all the while facing no oversight, no regulations, and certainly no consent from the public. Because the Google’s and Microsoft’s of the world are private corporations, and because they hold more power than entire nations themselves, this meant you, the internet user had no say in how this data is collected or used.
The Online Privacy Information Center (epic.org) notes “There is a significant disconnect between the type of tracking that companies are engaged in on the web and what people know or think is occurring.” (EPIC). Even beyond your internet behavior, the devices collecting data began to creep ever more into the real-world behavior of the public.
The American Bar Association says, “a cell phone may send data regarding its location thousands of times a day.” (ABA). Even worse, for those who are privacy-minded, some companies like Google have been caught monitoring your location even if you turn that function off. “Google services on Android devices and iPhones track and store your location data even if you turn location history off in your privacy settings, according to an Associated Press investigation.” (CNET). In essence, any Big Tech company, an app developer, any private company can and will track your every movement and be subject to providing that information to the government in secret without you ever knowing about it.
Much in the same way Big Brother would monitor behavior and weed out dissidents, secret courts in the United States have been hard at work monitoring the internet behavior of the U.S. citizens and issuing arrest warrants for those it deems “a threat to national security”. Although it sounds like a good idea to track and monitor potential threats, it begs the question, to what extent is someone considered a threat? What if someone publicly opposes a new policy or politician. What if a reporter finds out damaging information about a new candidate or rival? Welcome to the secret world of FISA courts (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court). But, don’t be fooled by the “foreign” part of the name. NPR reports that a FISA court cannot be petitioned to disclose who or why an American citizen is being “wiretapped”. Or in other words, if an agency with an agenda doesn’t like what you’re doing or how you’re talking, they can petition a court to legally set up a wiretap on you, your internet behavior, your speech at home, who you associate with, where you are at certain times of the day and more.
Even in the case of powerful people, like when Trump was running for office in the 2016 presidential elections (regardless of how you feel about him), a secret FISA court granted the FBI access to track, monitor, and record ALL information about Trump, his campaign, and more. “What they found were serious errors with the FBI’s surveillance on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. They documented 17 significant inaccuracies and omissions in the bureau’s applications to wiretap Page.” (NPR). All of this without the monitored parties knowing about it, or being able to petition against it. Even worse, was that the Trump campaign and others like it were monitored because they posed a political threat to the establishment. Now imagine the average joe who posts information about crimes of the currently in charge administration. Imagine a journalist is getting close to spilling the beans about something a powerful person did. A secretive FISA court can and will issue a complete, pervasive, and undetectable wiretap on that individual all because they committed a thought crime. Even more frustrating, the means of that monitoring is not carried out by the government, but rather Big Tech, the modern-day Big Brother.
It’s not just your behavior
Your internet behavior and location are not the only things subject to Big Brother, but so too is your speech. Back in June of 2015, Amazon released a new product, something we’ve all come to know and most of us have in our homes, “Alexa”. Similarly, Google released Google Assistant and many other companies have followed suit. These types of “always-on” devices have fortunately caught a lot of attention with privacy advocates who filed suit with the FTC alleging these devices violate federal wiretapping laws. However, the power of Big Brother has meant that these devices continue to always record all conversations and speech within your home, and those recordings are accessible to the employees of those companies without any need for warrants, because users have accepted the terms of use agreement that accompanies those devices, most likely with out even reading the agreement.
What Big Brother Says Goes
Aside from monitoring your speech/behavior/location, Big Brother has also taken to censoring and even punishing people who do not commit crimes or speak out against the status quo. Perhaps most noteworthy of the bunch is Twitter and Facebook, who over the past four years have continuously sought out and silenced or banned people who speak out against the Main Stream Media, CIA-backed narratives or whatever political candidate those company’s support.
**Side Note – Yes, the U.S government and CIA have admitted to planting CIA operatives within all mainstream media organizations. To learn more about the CIA influencing mass media, simply visit https://www.refworld.org/docid/47c567c020.html.**
In many instances, speech on Twitter is not only banned, but police actively show up to people’s places of work or their homes. In one case a man in England was visited by police at his place of work. The police admitted that no crime was committed, but that the individual’s particular tweet had offended someone and was reported as a “hate incident” (The Guardian). This leaves open the slippery slope of allowing Big Brother to punish those who do not partake in the mainstream narratives. At the same time, companies like Twitter and Facebook claim they have no obligation to protect individuals’ rights to free speech/expression because they are privately held companies. Yet, in a world where your voice is mostly only heard on public utilities like Twitter, it begs the question, do monopolies who hold platforms based on speech have the right to police speech protected under the 1st amendment. For now, their fancy lawyers and those easily offended on the internet cry yes. Even if it means effectively silencing millions of otherwise honest, fair, and decent human beings.
2+2=5
Yet, Big Brother has not stopped with policing free speech online, Big Tech has even gone so far as to implement “The Ministry of Truth”. Just like in George Orwell’s 1984 novel, modern-day tech companies seem more eager than ever to re-write history and “set the record straight” according to what they want people to think and feel. Take for instance the notion of a “fact check”. In many cases, these “fact checks” are done by individuals with clear biases, with very one-sided narratives, and often blatant disregard for reality, all in the name of preserving Big Brothers Ministry of Truth.
Even more “unseen” is Big Brother’s use of algorithms to hide and censor certain information they deem damaging to their cause. This is most evident when performing a Google search versus a “Duck Duck Go” search. The two companies use the same initial information to pull up search results. Yet, Google “curates” their search results so that each user is given Big Brother-approved propaganda instead of the cold hard truth.
Light at the end of the tunnel
All of this may seem like the fight is already lost. Much like the end of 1984 when Winston finally gives in and says 2+2=5, you may feel helpless in the sea of insanity and censorship. Yet, not all is lost. In the fight for freedom, new platforms which evade Big Brother’s grasp are becoming ever more popular and prevalent. Odds are if you enjoy using one of Big Brother’s platforms, there is an alternative that prides itself on free speech and common sense. With all the modern-day similarities to Big Brother, one thing couldn’t be further from the truth. There is still fight left in those who value free thought and who detest thought crimes. The core tenets of the internet mean that free speech and the thought marketplace continue to flourish on alternative platforms with developers working around the clock to protect your privacy, your rights, and the foundation of a free society.
About the Author
Jay LaBonte is the award-winning author of the bestselling book, Your Guiding Genius: Building A World Class Team. Jay holds a Master’s Degree in Computer Information Systems and is a Certified Employment Law Specialist. With over thirty years’ experience managing teams of all sizes in various industries, he is no stranger to team leadership and has raised the bar on team building. Mr. LaBonte currently provides IT consulting services through Paradigm Systems, LLC. and is one of the foremost experts on Multivalue database performance tuning and administration. You may contact him by visiting http://www.paradigm-systems.us.
Posted by Jay LaBonte 
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