Do you think surveillance makes us safer? What is the difference between a device like Alexa and the telescreens of 1984? What about closed-circuit television?

Do you think surveillance makes us safer? What is the difference between a device like Alexa and the telescreens of 1984? What about closed-circuit television?

Surveillance doesn't make anyone safer, just more paranoid. How can a person live with every motion and word being monitored? When does a person get some private time...to deal with daily stress, challenges, just wrapping one's head around an issue?

I agree with Tired Bookreader. Surveillance makes people paranoid. I was given Alexa as a gift, used it for a couple of weeks, and unplugged it when it answered questions not directly directed at it. I think I was already bothered by the intrusiveness of the device. How much worse would constant surveillance be? Absolutely no time for yourself. I would hate it. Julia is very aware of being watched, as are her fellow citizens. The way they talk so falsely to each other shows how much that intrusiveness affects their lives.

I agree that surveillance can be terrible but when we choose it rather than being forced to use it there is quite a difference. With a devise like Alexis we can choose to purchase it, where it is placed, to turn it off when it isn’t useful. The telescreens were government placed devises with the sole purpose of making people act, live, talk only in approved ways so the government could keep total power.
I think this book has a true warning for us today. Our democracy is so precious and fragile in contrast with the authoritarian dictatorship in this book.

I think in some cases, yes, it can make us safer. Think about all the security cameras and Ring doorbell cams, and how often they're used to identify criminals. Having a "SimpliSafe" sticker on one's windows may very well be enough to deter a breakin.

It's a really fine line, though. The big contention in my city right now is that they're installing a system that monitors for gun fire, and many people believe it'll lead to the over-surveillance of some communities.

I worry about how much surveillance we already have in this country. I know that law enforcement will say that it is needed to keep us safe, but I wonder how often it is misused. It is certainly helpful in the apprehension of criminal behavior, but I think there is definitely situations where it can be misused. Maybe I'm just suspicious of the motivations of some of our law enforcement and political figures. We seem to be a country of easily manipulated people.

I agree with many of the above posts....there are benefits and advantages to the "surveillance" we currently have in the United States. Just like everything in life, there needs to be a balance. Of course we want guns to be kept out of the hands of those who would use them for harmful purposes, and we want to be safe from danger, but the question arises who is using all this data and how much control do we have. Clearly we need to remain constantly diligent, but our lives are busy and many of us do not have the time to even barely monitor our settings on Alexa or Google; we all have experienced the surprising marketing pop-ups on social media for a product we just searched for minutes ago. Our surveillance is probably more subtle than the telescreens in "1984" and "Julia" but there are some similarities...so it raises many issues....

Let me begin by saying I own Alexa and I love her. I guess I’m too trusting. I use the device as a very handy tool and don’t think of it as a surveillance instrument. I think the CCTV cameras in England are helpful as well. No thinking person would want the telescreens of Orwell’s future in society. I think there’s a huge difference between what we have now and what he envisioned. Having said that, perhaps what we have now is a gentle first step in that direction.

CCTV cameras can cause one to feel safer; however, smart criminals know how to defeat them. I do not have Alexa. I turn off whatever tracking I can on my phone, iPad, vehicle GPS & Siri. I am against the federal government surveillance of civilians and the FISA courts. I am against red light cameras at intersections. Anybody who has traveled to a country with a communist totalitarian regime loathes any form of surveillance because giving up any right becomes a slippery slope. My right to privacy should not be infringed unless I give express authorization. Orwell’s writings were so prescient. Just look to Russia, China, North Korea. Spies. Surveillance. People tend to disappear or have unfortunate accidents if they offend the PARTY.

An important difference is that we actually do not know how much of our privacy is being invaded, whereas in Big Brother’s world, everyone did. Alexa has been found to violate users’ privacy in multiple successful lawsuits against Amazon—not only by providing Amazon with data it sold to marketers, but also by accidentally allowing other households to hear someone else’s conversations.(Just google “Alexa privacy violations.”)It’s not just Alexa; our lives on the Internet are constantly being surveilled by and collected and sold by the corporations whose browsers we use. There’s a price to be paid for convenience as well as security, and the technology being used by corporations, scammers, and governments is more sophisticated now than a simple TV camera on a wall. Many of us may not know how to protect ourselves, and sometimes there may be no way to do that.

It matters who is watching, too: a doorbell cam strikes me as a useful personal security device; cops in some places are required to wear body cams; but what about hidden cameras on traffic lights or street lights—-that starts to look a lot more like Big Brother. We might feel it doesn’t matter because we live in democracy—for now. But that can change.

In a word, No. Giving up freedom/privacy for security is and has always been a fool's game.

As others have said, I think there's a difference between choosing a Smart device for one's home and Big Brother's constant surveillance. I don't use a device like Alexa because I don't mind using a remote control to change a channel or type my question into Google search on an electronic device. Some people just like gadgets, and sometimes the novelty wears off. We need to be alert to invasions of privacy versus some minor home security of a Ring doorbell.

I think the current surveillance of social media is particularly dangerous. On the one hand it is used to cancel people who say anything that is currently disapproved, and on the other when someone posts threats to kill someone, nothng seems to be done and then when a mass shooting occurs, everyone wants to claim surprise (and blame the gun).

I don't think surveillance necessarily makes us safer. The only difference between a device like Alexa and telescreens is that when you use a smart device like Alexa, you are choosing to do that. With the telescreens, there was no choice, you couldn't get away from them, and for most people, they couldn't shut them off.

I struggle to draw a line between surveillance that is okay and surveillance that is not. I always hear Elie Wiesel's words in my ears when I think of how much surveillance we have accepted as "necessary" (especially after 9/11), but it remains impossible for me to decide where "necessary" becomes Orwellian.

This is a hard question to answer as helpful as surveillance can/could be it can be just as horrendous when used for the wrong purposes and often we do know which is.