Current situation in the world related to 1984

People in the book 1984, written by George Orwell are controlled by surveillance cameras named ‘telescreens’ located everywhere: houses, offices, streets and buildings. Now take a look around you just for a second. If you live in an apartment, you must have felt the lens of a video camera gazing on back of your jacket in the morning. We do not feel safe just because 1984 is a mere science fiction, since circumstances demonstrated in the book is currently happening in reality.

According to a news article in England, “The country’s more than 2.5 million CCTV cameras catch each British resident as many as 300 times each day” (Smile, You’re on Surveillance Camera). Imagine yourself exposed by cold lenses of millions of surveillance cameras through which an agent you don’t even know is watching. This privacy infringe happens elsewhere too. Despite the complaints of privacy promoting groups, Washington police have set up a video surveillance network that can zoom in on people half a mile away. In Korea where speeding cameras are all over streets, situation is even worse. Furthermore, the ticket dispenser in every tollbooth of Korean expressway entrance has a camera and takes picture of entering divers with a time stamp on it. Of course these CCTV cameras are set up to cope with accidents, crimes and terrorisms. However, nobody knows when and where these photos might be abused by a dishonest government officer. Dystopian society demonstrated in 1984 –citizens controlled and by ‘telescreens’ of a totalitarian government monitoring them day and night- might no longer be a simple fictional story in a nearby library anymore.