Corey Doctorow uses his book, Little Brother, to make the reader believe the government is against the people. He portrays it as a villain when really, even in his book, it is just trying to protect its citizens. He uses the torture and imprisonment of high school students to create an emotional attachment to his argument, when really there is little or no motivation for that to actually happen. He doesn’t even explain why they were initially captured. Marcus committed a crime in not unlocking his phone. He was obstructing justice, hence his imprisonment was justified. The torture I find to be completely unrealistic. It is an example of Doctorow abusing his portrayal of “what could happen.”
But if the government is, in fact, a villain, what is the gain it gets from the action it takes in Little Brother? There is no financial gain. Nor is there a change in political power. The only party that stands to gain anything is the people themselves. As mentioned before, the United States government has safety nets, preventing these laws found in the Patriot Act to be used against the citizens. The only people that have anything to lose are those people who are trying to harm American citizens or those who are too stubborn to prove that they are not doing anything wrong.
While this book does bring up some good questions, it does not provide any answers. Doctorow simply is a radical, making his point by putting fear of the plausibility of an unrealistic future in the hearts of the reader.
Finally, Doctorow simply does not put a high enough priority on human life. He puts a principle ahead of it. While principles are important, there is nothing as important as life itself. Something had to change after the attacks on the World Trade Centers. People’s privacy had to be somewhat sacrificed to protect those very same people. It’s ignorant to think that the war would simply end terrorist threats. If anything it raised them, making the laws resulting from the Patriot Act even more necessary. Providing safety to its citizens is higher priority to government, and it should be.

Image borrowed from selectsafetyservices.com

Image borrowed from ralphmag.org