George Orwell

Owing largely to progress in communications and other technologies, governments and businesses today have more power than ever to monitor and influence what we buy, were we go, what we watch or read, and what we believe. Recent terrorists attacks in the United States of America (most notably, the destruction of the twin World Trade Towers in New York and the Pentagon, and the delivery of Anthrax spores to public officials and the media in the U.S.A.) has most citizens more willing than ever to give up more individual freedom and privacy in exchange for the promise of greater security. Long denied the right to violate basic individual rights and freedoms and privacy, the world's law enforcement and surveillance communities and their governments are seizing the day, and making rapid steps to pass relatively permanent legislation giving the government powers which - prior to the acts of September 11, 2001 - would have been considered by the general populace to be powers properly unleashed only for temporary periods of national emergency.

In the process, questions are being raised as to whether the surrender of individual freedom will actually result in greater security, or whether we, in giving up freedom for security, are satisfying the aim of the terrorists to begin with: to undermine individual freedom of choice, equality under the law, and the dignity of every individual.

1984 has long been the first book to which we have turned for a vivid picture of a government that has used war to justify infringement on freedom; that has used speech codes to limit everyone's ability to understand higher concepts or concepts that favour human individuality; that uses powerful media to build unwarranted consensus and rewrite history; and that has used technology to nip political opposition and individualistic or eccentric practices in the bud. Far from being a caricature, it insightfully and skillfully characterizes the tendencies and motivations of unlimited government power, and the horrifying, hopeless result of such government: humanity denied its freedom to think, to be rational, and to dissent...its freedom to be human.

If, after finishing 1984, you find yourself nervous and paranoid, then: good. You have just taken a step closer to respecting the importance of human freedom and dignity, and the dangers in allowing governments to usurp your freedom to dissent or be different. All that remains is to fight to maintain or regain