Subsequent revelations by other reputable news sources have uncovered the fact that the government and this administration is also collecting other electronic communications activities of private citizens including emails, credit card transactions, etc. This was all done in the name of “national security.”
The scary aspect of these clandestine activities is the recent scandal on how the Obama administration was using, and abusing, the private citizen information available via the IRS to harass and deny freedom of speech rights to citizens and organizations, both political and religious, over the past few years. This severely broke the bond of trust between the citizenry and the government and the belief that the government was an impartial entity, not favoring anyone or any group based on their political or religious views.
Now, with that broken bond of trust, who is to say that the government and its agents will not similarly abuse the citizenry with this trove of private communications data? As the various scandals unfold, we seem to be getting closer and closer to the repressive form of government written about in George Orwell’s novel, “1984.” In that story, an all controlling, all knowing, repressive government, represented by the fictional propaganda figure, “Big Brother,” has squashed democracy and free will while keeping an extremely tight and oppressive leash on all citizens.
Which brings us to today’s post, courtesy of the following website:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/hnigatu/orwell-or-obama
Take the following quiz and try to determine whether the topic of each of the following ten questions describes the repressive tactics of Orwell’s Big Brother or the Obama administration (answers below):
1. "Telephony metadata"
- Another word for the information the Orwellian government is secretly collecting from its citizens’ phone records.
- Another word for the information the Obama administration is secretly collecting from its citizens’ phone records.
2. "Teledep"
- The department in Orwell’s “1984” that is in charge of re-writing history through media.
- The department in the Obama administration that is responsible for getting intelligence from telephone calls.
3. "The Custodian of Records"
- The figure in Orwell’s “1984” in charge of cleaning up all media to erase any hint of government wrong doing.
- The figure in the Obama administration who provides electronic phone records to the National Security Agency.
4. "Data-mining"
- The Orwellian practice of searching citizens’ data for national security.
- The Obama administration searching through its citizens’ data for national security.
5. "Newspeak"
- The propagandist language of the Orwellian universe marked by euphemism, circumlocution, and the inversion of customary meanings.
- The propagandist language of the Obama administration marked by euphemism, circumlocution, and the inversion of customary meanings.
6. "Upsub"
- The Orwellian practice of getting authorization from superiors (frequently to change things to conform to party line.)
- The practice of getting authorization from superiors (frequently to change things to conform to party line).
7. "Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court"
- The “secret” court in the Orwellian government in charge of surveillance initiatives that are deemed important to national security and intelligence.
- The “secret” court in the Obama administration in charge of surveillance warrants for things that are deemed important to national security and intelligence.
8. "Malreported"
- An adjective to describe the Orwellian practice of dismissing journalist facts as untrue and never admitting the government is wrong.
- An adjective to describe the Obama administration’s practice of dismissing journalist facts as untrue and never admitting the government is wrong.
9. "Pornosec"
- A division of the Orwellian government in charge of producing pornographic content to distract the masses.
- A secret division of the Obama administration in charge of monitoring your data for terrorist communication disguised as pornographic content.
10. "Doublethink"
- A policy of psychological manipulation in the Orwellian universe that is rooted in being able to hold contradicting ideas at the same time.
- A policy of psychological manipulation in the Obama administration wherein prominent figures say and do contradictory things.
And the correct answers in the quiz of who is the bigger of the “Big Brothers” are as follows:
1) Obama
2) Orwell - Teledep is short for The Teleprograms Department of the Ministry of Truth.
3) Obama - “The Custodian of Records shall produce to the National Security Agency (NSA) upon service of this Order, and continue production on an ongoing daily basis thereafter for the duration of this Order, unless otherwise ordered by the Court, an electronic copy of the following tangible things: all call detail records or “telephony metadata” created by Verizon for communications (i) between the United States and abroad; or (ii) wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls.” Source: The Guardian, the newspaper that broke the story on the NSA spying scandal.
4) Obama - “The request for the bulk collection of all Verizon domestic telephone records indicates that the agency [NSA] is continuing some version of the data-mining program begun by the Bush administration in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attack.” Source: The Guardian
5) Orwell
6) Orwell - “Upsub” is a part of the language of Newspeak.
7) Obama - “The FISC oversees requests for surveillance warrants against suspected foreign intelligence agents inside the United States by federal law enforcement agencies (primarily the F.B.I.). [Enacted in 1978]” Because of the sensitive nature of its business, the FISC is a “secret court”: its hearings are closed to the public, and, while records of the proceedings are kept, those records are also not available to the public.” Source: Wikipedia
8) Orwell - “Malreported - When the Times reports a fact which the government later deemed untrue. You see, the government is never “wrong”, the paper merely reported the facts incorrectly. This term was often used in describing newspaper articles that contained references to unpersons, unfulfilled economic projections, or altered government policies.” Source: A glossary of Orwellian terms.
9) Orwell - Pornosec is a division of the Fiction Department of the Ministry of Truth that produces pornography for proles (the working class/proletariat).
10) Orwell
How did you do? It is not easy distinguishing between the oppressive tactics of Big Brother, the Obama administration, and the entire political class in Washington. And, even though some of the answers above directly relate to Orwell, with a little imagination they could also apply to the Obama administration and Washington in general:
- When a renegade U.S. Army soldier, a person who had been in touch with a leading terrorist leader in Yemen, goes crazy in Fort Hood and starts shooting up the place, killing and wounding many Americans, yelling anti-American slogans and pro Islamic slogans in the process, this administration insists it is not a terrorist attack, it is a violence in the workplace incident. Certainly a case of Orwellian thinking and “propagandist language marked by euphemism, circumlocution, and the inversion of customary meanings.”
- A similar case of circumlocution and inversion is made by the Obama administration insisting that there never be a reference to “Islamic terrorism” even though there are many people devoted to Islam who are terrorists, i.e. newspeak. Did the Obama administration “upsub” the description of the terrorist attacks at Benghazi when the so-called “talking points” were changed or edited about a dozen times to minimize the appearance of government incompetence, eventually settling down to a point where the “talking points“ made up stuff and put the blame for the attack on a badly made, obscure YouTube video?
- Isn’t it a form of Doublethink when the President says no one will lose their current health care insurance under Obama Care but the Congressional Budget Office says 7 million Americans will lose their insurance, when the President says not a single dime will be added to the deficit because of Obama Care but numerous sources expect hundreds of billions of dollars to be added to the deficit because of Obama Care, when the President says that the entire ten year cost of Obama Care will be under $900 billion but the latest Congressional Budget Office puts the total cost at over $1l7 TRILLION, etc.
- Didn't Nancy Pelosi recently experience a misreported episode when after four years of extolling the cost savings every American will experience under Obama Care she recently declared that she never declared that every American would see cost savings under Obama Care?
That is why Step 39 from “Love My Country, Loathe My Government” is so important. Step 39 would impose term limits on all Federal politicians so that we break this Big Brother mode of thinking and operation and get back to the principles of privacy, freedom, limited government. Because, as this quiz proves, along with the past few posts on government snooping and harassment, we are much closer to Orwell’s dysfunctional world than to Jefferson‘s, Franklin’s, and Washington’s vision for America.
Tomorrow, we will put forth our proposed steps needed to fix what ails our democracy and those that created this mess that would have made Big Brother proud.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:
www.loathemygovernment.com
It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w
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