Human Rights in the Surveillance Society. A study of the similarities between George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and the Western World today

Abstract

The technical development which has taken place since George Orwell published his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four has contributed substantially to the surveillance society in the Western World today. Although Western countries historically have supported their inhabitants right to privacy, modern technology is now used to diminish this right for instance in the fight against terrorism. This essay examines similarities between the Oceanian society and present day societies of the western world, mainly the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and Sweden, and discusses how surveillance affects the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [UDHR].