Little Brother

In Little Brother, normal life abruptly comes to a halt when terrorists bomb the Oakland Bay Bridge and BART tunnel. During the ensuing chaos, the DHS institutes draconian counterterrorism security measures, including dismantling residents’ right to privacy. Doctorow examines the question of privacy versus safety, focusing on how national security measures infringe on our basic right to privacy and how technology both enhances and detracts from individual privacy. For instance, teens in this novel suffer from a lack of privacy even before the bombing. Marcus notes that he, as a senior at Cesar Chavez High School, is one of the most surveilled people in the world. While the statement is hyperbole, his actions both in and out of school are surveilled by school security technology. When Marcus walks through the halls, his gait is analyzed. While in the classroom, he uses a school laptop that tracks his keystrokes. When off campus, RFIDs embedded in his schoolbooks track his movements in the city. Even the community spies on teens; on a truancy moblog, adults snap pictures of teens off campus during school hours and post the pictures where school administrators can peruse them. Teens endure this lack of privacy as a matter of course, but it reflects a public suspicion of teens in general. Ange notes that young people are “the object of suspicion all the time!” (166), as adults trade off teen’s privacy for perceived safety from youth crime. Only when online can savvy teens protect their privacy through encryption and screen names. This explains why Marcus feels more himself when his technology works for him; he has complete privacy online when he is anonymous, as do other Xnetters who use the platform for more than just gaming. The problem with all this surveillance, however, is that it doesn’t create a safer environment for the public. As Marcus notes, evading surveillance “[…] gets easier every time they add a new layer of physical snoopery—all the bells and whistles lull our beloved faculty into a totally false sense of security” (24).

After the bombing, all residents suffer when their privacy is sacrificed to public safety. The DHS tracks commuters through car stickers and public transit cards. They track consumers through debit and credit cards and the public through street cameras and gait recognition software. As there is virtually no chance that terrorists will strike twice at the same city, the security measures serve only to infringe on the privacy of private citizens rather than provide safety. By amassing extraordinary amounts of data to sort through, the DHS has created a virtual haystack through which they must search to find terrorists, and most of the evidence is simply the normal lives of ordinary people. Marcus realizes early on that insisting on his right to privacy does not mean that he has something to hide but that he has agency over his own life. On Treasure Island, he initially refuses to give up his passwords because they are the keystone for his private life; what he hides from public purview is not illegal, but it is private, and the DHS will accomplish nothing by rifling through his metaphorical drawers. Privacy is of prime importance to Marcus, evidenced by his reaction to Angie when she discloses that she knows he is M1k3y; even identity can be considered a right of privacy. While the Bill of Rights does not mention privacy specifically, it is covered by the Fourth Amendment, which states that the people have the right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures. As technology evolves, our personal information is held online and by third parties, and that data is also subject to our personal expectations of privacy.

Doctorow asserts in Little Brother that the privacy engendered by the anonymity of the Internet is threatening to the government and leads to legislation like the USA Patriot Act. While safety is important, it is not an either/or proposition as Drew claims when he asks, “Would you rather have privacy or terrorists?” (138). Marcus fights for his right to privacy because he recognizes, “It’s a little like nudity or taking a dump. Everyone gets naked once in a while. Everyone has to squat on the toilet […] It’s not about doing something shameful. It’s about doing something private. It’s about your life belonging to you” (57). He soon realizes that human dignity is irrevocably bound up with privacy, and that he is being stripped of both for no other reason than that he defied their authority. Doctorow effectively demonstrates that this type of governmental overreach is entirely possible when citizens sacrifice their privacy for the promise of future safety. In the Afterword, “bunnie” Huang supports Doctorow’s opinion when he writes, “Little Brother is a reminder that no matter how unpredictable the future might be, we don’t win freedom through security systems, cryptography, interrogations, and spot searches. We win freedom by having the courage and conviction to live every day freely and to act as a free society, no matter how great the threats are on the horizon” (373).