Let's do a little exercise: When you were in high school, probably sophomore or junior year, did you have to read George Orwell's 1984 for English class? Did you read the whole thing, no help from Sparknotes or a mere skimming over the text? How many of you actually read every single word of every single book you were assigned that year?
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Chances are that your answer to the first question was yes, and the third question was no. Consider how much better informed and better cultured you would be if you had done all of your work every day in class. 
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Keeping Orwell in mind, let's move to a new question: Right now, wherever you happen to be reading this article, are you being watched? Is there a camera in the room? Is there an authority figure who will punish you should you misbehave? Is there someone watching that person?
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It has become more and more likely that the answer to all of the above is a resounding yes. 1984, a classic dystopian novel about an all-powerful government that surveils its citizens' every moment, warns of the dangers of a possible future. Every day we hear more and more about the American "surveillance state," how our purchases, conversations, actions, our every choice is being chronicled and stored as data by outside forces. The National Security Administration has been mired in a scandal for the last six months about their secret surveillance of worldwide internet and cell phone usage, gathering data on almost anyone with a web browser about how they spend their time online. Edward Snowden, the whistle-blower who leaked so many documents that some still remain unpublished, is now one of the most wanted men alive by American intelligence agencies, for the crime of informing the people of what their governments are doing. 
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Reading about the NSA scandal is an exercise in recognizing Orwell references; practically eve-ry political pundit takes every chance they have to sneak in the words "Big Brother," an ironic fate for the author of Politics and the English Language. But there is an important distinction between the NSA and Big Brother which is often overlooked: In 1984, any and all surveillance is something which the surveilled can actually physically see.
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Winston recognizes the cameras in his home. He knows that secret police are following him, even if he can't tell who they are. What made the NSA scandal so shocking was that while most Americans knew their government was watching them to some extent (see the Patriot Act), al-most no one had any idea that so much data was being stored. It is humorous to consider that we accept surveillance so easily, but nearly every Google search you've entered is likely stored on a server somewhere in Washington, along with every Amazon purchase and every Facebook status. Americans were confident that their government would never go that far, yet it did without us ever knowing about it. It was not just proof of a police state; it was also a betrayal of trust.
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A surveillance story that didn't make headlines last year was Rialto, Calif.'s new police uniforms, which include small cameras that capture each officer's shift from the officer's point of view. People are informed by the police officer that they are being recorded, and that upon arrest the footage can be used as evidence in court. While at first glance this sounds like Orwell's fears made a reality, response has been entirely positive. 
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The main purpose of the cameras isn't to watch civilians, it's to watch the cops: officers follow the rules if their superiors have documented proof of exactly what they are doing, and Rialto residents say that in addition to following protocol better, their police just generally act kinder. Since the cameras started recording, public complaints about officers have fallen 88 percent, and use of force by officers has fallen 60 percent according to a study by the Guardian. At the same time, officers have noticed that civilians are more polite when they are on camera, even when drunk, high, or angry. The cameras also allow courts to see exactly what was happening upon arrest. There are no more conflicting testimonies where emotions muddle the facts. Even the American Civil Liberties Union, frequent critics of police abuse and infringement on personal rights, have celebrated the program, so long as Rialto continues to regularly delete videos after processing a case and never releases the footage to the public.
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When pundits claim that modern technology has made Orwell's dystopia a reality, they do a disservice to the book, the technology and the capacity of a watching eye to do actual good. The presence of cameras themselves is not an evil; nobody begrudges a store owner for trying to catch shoplifters. It is when all of the data compiled by all of the cameras is controlled by one entity, an entity that has no safeguard against itself, that privacy is threatened. And the less that entity tells the people what they are doing with the information, the less safe the world becomes. Modern technology can be applied to both wonderfully positive and nefarious actions, but it is only an extension of the people that use it. 
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Get mad at the NSA. They deserve to know that they've gone too far, and the beauty of the Internet is that through the same chat rooms and communities they survey, people are organizing and expressing their anger. That is free speech, a right which, far from being stifled by an oppressive, omnipotent government, is more fiercely defended than ever online in the face of the Snowden leaks. 
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But it is not surveillance technology itself that is the potential danger; it was not security cameras of which George Orwell was afraid. The scary ones are the people who are using those cameras, and whether they are held accountable to their own rules. We, the civilians, must be skeptical of the people in power, just as we have been for thousands of years.