The novel “Little Brother” by Cory Doctorow was published for the first time in 2008.
Marcus Yallow believes his problem is school, which has a student surveillance system. Thanks to his computer skills, he manages to circumvent it. However, when he and some friends find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, in the area targeted by a terrorist attack, they are arrested as suspects.
After days of interrogation by Homeland Security agents, Marcus is released and discovers that Darryl, one of his friends, is still being held. Threatened with further and worse legal troubles if he reveals what happened to him, he can’t even tell his parents. Seeing the growing power of Homeland Security, he decides to fight back so as not to see his country turned into a police state.
“Little Brother” is labeled young adult because its protagonists are teenagers, and it can be considered a coming-of-age novel, in which friendship and first love are among the themes included in the plot. However, the political and social ramifications make it suitable for older readers. It’s also labeled a dystopia, but the plot was realistic when Cory Doctorow wrote it, and the situation in the USA seems to have even worsened.
One of the reasons the novel is labeled a dystopia is its inspiration from “1984,” which is explicit in the title and in Marcus’s original internet handle, w1n5t0n, inspired by the name of the protagonist in George Orwell’s novel. Otherwise, the reality depicted by Cory Doctorow can’t be considered fictional.
The issue of mass surveillance by law enforcement and intelligence agencies has become particularly pressing in the past two decades. The fact that some agencies can operate with little or no oversight and virtually complete impunity has led to a variety of reactions. In Cory Doctorow’s case, the reaction was also to write a novel with a strong educational focus for anyone interested in activism for the defense of individual freedoms.
Computer technology has evolved so quickly that several elements of this novel are already outdated, but a lot of the information is still useful. The Paranoid Linux distribution used by Marcus inspired a real-life project with that name, although in the end, projects such as Tails, developed to be useful to people who must use it clandestinely because they live in dictatorships, probably come closest to Cory Doctorow’s vision.
The activism chosen by Marcus is used by Cory Doctorow to spark discussions on political and social issues. Some discussions concern the American Constitution and the individual freedoms it’s supposed to guarantee citizens, even against their own governments and law enforcement agencies.
The author mentions the opinions of those in favor of what are proposed as anti-terrorism measures or otherwise aimed at ensuring citizen safety. These people argue that the US Constitution is old and, as a result, certain articles are no longer relevant to today’s reality. These are the same people who defend the amendment about the right to bear arms as if it were a divine law, even though the weapons citizens have access to today are far more lethal than 18th-century muskets.
In his activism, Marcus also faces people who prefer to turn a blind eye to the problem of abuses of power because they’re scared, and surveillance measures make them feel safer. Politicians who push for such laws have every interest, in some cases even financial, in scaring people into accepting them. In the end, for every criminal arrested, there are many innocent people who find themselves in trouble even for criticizing the wrong person.
The plot developments also show the risks activists face, even in supposedly democratic nations, when authorities assume powers that trample on supposedly inalienable civil rights. Jose Luis (Jolu) Torrez, one of Marcus’s friends, points out that non-white people are at greater risk when they become activists.
“Little Brother” is full of events, but it can’t be considered an action novel. It’s in many ways a manual aimed at teaching people how to use modern technology to become little brothers active in exercising democratic control over the authorities. For these reasons, it’s a must-read if you’re worried about authoritarian trends hidden behind the promise of security. You can freely download it from Cory Doctorow’s website.
