One passage in Little Brother that I found particularly interesting was a line said by Drew Yallow, Marcus’s father, while they were arguing about the effectiveness of the DHS budget increase. In response to Marcus claiming that the DHS investigations were a breach of privacy, Drew asks, “What’s the big deal? Would you rather have privacy or terrorists?” (118) Ignoring the logical error (I’d much rather have privacy and not terrorists, thanks) and assuming that he meant to ask “no privacy or terrorists”, this line caught my attention because it seems to perfectly encapsulate the central theme of the novel, and of the security debate in general. From the perspective of the government, the need for security vastly outweighs the need for privacy, which made it easy to justify the decision to take away all individual rights pertaining to privacy. However, from the perspective of the Xnetters, privacy is a right that should not be violated, even in the name of national security, so they found ways to circumvent the constant surveillance through internet encryption and secret meetings.

Personally, I stand somewhere on the spectrum between the views of the DHS and the Xnetters. I would be very opposed to the amount of surveillance the government in Little Brother imposed on its people, but I’m also not completely opposed to a certain extent of surveillance as long as it stays within reasonable bounds. I believe that governments and other administrations should be allowed to surveil certain networks, such as school-provided wifi, and public areas, but any privately owned property and private areas such as bathrooms should be off-limits unless there is probably cause. To answer Drew’s questions, I’d much rather have no terrorists, but not if it costs all of my privacy.