gnovis Journal Fall 2014 Volume XV, Issue 1 • •
Freedom v. The Man: Security, Torture, and “Freedom” in Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother
Thomas Wells Georgetown University
Abstract
Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother is more than just a sci–fi story about computer hackers. This paper is an attempt to identify the poor ethics of privacy at work in the book, and offer some alternatives that might produce a more fruitful conversation when exploring this subject.
vacy, by the right to be left alone, by the right to explore your weird n the opening sequence of the book, the ideas provided you don’t hurt oth- young protagonist of Cory Doctorow’s Lit- ers, then you have common cause Itle Brother is illegally detained. He takes a with the kids whose web-browsers brutal blow to the head from a riot cop and and cell phones are being used thinks: “I didn’t like these people. I decided to lock them up and follow them right then, they would pay a price for all of this” around (2). (19). And they do. Using a variety of tools— jailbroken1 Xboxes, data encryption, and clever coding, he trips them up in every way that he But we have gone down that road, and we all can, waging a guerrilla war against sovereign helped to get us there. We’ve been there for a power run amok. Little Brother is a thrilling tale, long time. Doctorow’s impotent rage about the complete with a faceless, oppressive villain, a fundamental freedoms guaranteed to Ameri- brilliant white–boy protagonist with a roster cans rings hallow when contrasted with the of multi–ethnic sidekicks, and occasional bits neoliberal message he espouses throughout of gray morality sprinkled throughout. Doc- the text. His arguments, masked in plucky torow outlines in his introduction that this is freedom fighting teenagers, cover a privilege more than just a sci-fi story about computer embedded deep within the American psyche— hackers—this is real, and in reality, people are that somehow our freedom is better than other tortured, surveilled, tracked, and identified: freedoms, that rebellion functions through the exercise of capital, and that there’s nothing more punk rock than telling old people to fuck We don’t have to go down that road. off (there is a punk rock concert called “Don’t If you love freedom, if you think the Trust Anyone Over 25” in the book). human condition is dignified by pri- If it isn’t evident, I don’t cotton to Doc- 1Jailbreaking is a form of privilege escalation: “Privilege escalation is the act of exploiting a bug, design flaw or configuration oversight in an operating system or software application to gain elevated access to resources that are normally protected from an application or user. The result is that an application with more privileges than intended by the application developer or system administrator can perform unauthorized actions” (wikipedia).
1 gnovis Journal Fall 2014 Volume XV, Issue 1 • • torow’s vision of the world. It’s not because many of the finer points of the ideology the I think everyone is a terrorist, or because I book promotes. I don’t know if Doctorow in- think we should be monitoring anybody who tended the book to be read as a manifesto of vaguely fits into the abstracted and stereotyped sorts, even though it does begin with some- category of terrorist, or because I think owning thing akin to one. The book seems more things is the worst thing that’s ever happened likely to have been intended as edutainment, to Western civilization. Violating the privacy a thriller with educational information about of another is unethical—it displays a contempt many different topics relevant to the DIY (do- for consent. My issue is with Doctorow’s use it-yourself) and hacker communities. However, of his characters as vehicles for his reasoning, my charity can only extend so far—at some which as I’ve said, is deeply embedded in priv- point, texts are accountable for what is con- ilege. While there are those who exploit power tained in them as objects that do intellectual and use it to dominate, control, and injure, work in the world. In addition, I think that my problem lies with the creation of faceless Doctorow wouldn’t object to my classification villains in a world filled with faces. Faceless of his work as reflective of some of the larger villains protect us from the vulnerability re- concerns that he writes about in articles on the quired to face the villain inside all of us, the popular tech blog Boing Boing. In an article potential villain, they protect us from having to about Doctorow for the Financial Times, Tim work through our complacency with our own Harford writes: “In his novels and his blog- oppression. This paper is an attempt to iden- ging, the ruthless abuse of state power is just tify the poor ethics of privacy at work within as much of a theme as the grasping amoral- Little Brother, and offer some alternatives that ity of large corporations.” Doctorow is clearly might produce a more fruitful conversation concerned with the dark and light sides of late when exploring this subject. capitalism—but Little Brother seems to love the Doctorow’s text centers on Marcus Yallow, a wonderful magical candy palace of the free 17–year–old teenager whose world transforms market a bit too much. after a terrorist attack on the San Francisco Bay To the text: early in the novel, Marcus is Bridge. Marcus and his friends are illegally subjected to illegal detention as well as other detained at “Gitmo-by-the-bay,” a fictional ver- highly unethical detention practices. He is sion with strong echoes of Guantanamo Bay hit, he is isolated, he is forced to soil him- and Abu Ghraib prison. Marcus is assaulted, self, he doesn’t get food—there’s nothing here deprived of light, food, and water, and forced that is defensible from an ethical framework to piss himself. He vows revenge on the DHS, that is interested in the defense of human dig- and after his release, begins to wage a guer- nity. Doctorow makes an incredibly nuanced rilla war on the organization. As he fights, a point through the eyes of his young protago- coming–of–age drama is woven through the nist: “They’d taken everything from me. First narrative, and Marcus gets a girlfriend, loses my privacy, then my dignity. I’d been ready his virginity, goes on the lam, and ultimately to sign anything. I would have signed a con- takes down the DHS and saves his friend, who fession that said I’d assassinated Abraham Lin- has been detained since the beginning of the coln” (25). From a purely practical standpoint, text. The book ends with Marcus working to this illustrates a classic argument against tor- protect the rights of Americans, reminding the ture, that a person will say anything to make it stop. reader of the need for constant vigilance. Ethical concerns aside, human beings don’t like First, I want to be charitable to Doctorow to suffer, and have an interest in avoiding it, and his work. Little Brother is a work of young to lift language from Peter Singer2. Then, Doc- adult fiction, and because he is writing for a torow makes a particularly compelling move specific audience, there will be some gloss over by turning his young protagonist into a ter- 2See Singer’s book, Animal Liberation.
2 gnovis Journal Fall 2014 Volume XV, Issue 1 • • rorist. He makes a vow: “ ‘I’m going to get stone) until the very last pages of the book them,’ I whispered, staring at my soda. ’I’m (129). I think it is important to consider what going to get them.’ ” (27). The remainder of Judith Butler has said on the subject of faceless- the novel is Marcus Yallow waging war, get- ness: ting the DHS. There are some small glimmers of ambiguity, where Marcus wonders if he’s doing the right thing, if he’s endangering his When we consider the ordinary loved ones with his actions, but ultimately, all ways that we think about human- this worrying serves to create tension within ization and dehumanization, we the text, rather than asking serious questions find the assumption that those who about the consequences of the cyclical nature of gain representation, especially self– the War on Terror. There is a particularly frus- representation, have a better chance trating sequence where Marcus’s friend Jolu of being humanized, and those who wants out of the fight against the DHS, and have no chance to represent them- says to Marcus: selves run a greater risk of be- ing treated as less than human re- garded as less than human, or in- I hate to say it, but you’re white. deed, not regarded at all (141). I’m not. White people get caught with cocaine and do a little rehab time. Brown people get caught with Representation allows for humanization. In sit- crack and go to prison for twenty uations where individuals do not have any sort years. White people see cops on the of identity, it becomes that much easier to exer- street and feel safer. Brown people cise power over them. After watching Standard see cops on the street and wonder if Operating Procedure, Errol Morris’s documen- they’re about to get searched. The tary about Abu Ghraib prison, it is difficult not way the DHS is treating you? The to see the face at work in these torturers who law in this country has always been are typically represented as faceless. Lynndie like that for us (58). England, Javal Davis, Jeremy Sivits, and others are otherwise happy smiling people, who have friends and families, likes and dislikes, inter- There is some real nuance here, a real question ests and hobbies. Once this becomes clear, the about race politics in the United States, but line between who has the capacity to become Marcus glosses over it, thinking that he “didn’t a torturer and who does not is not so clear. ask to be white,” and that’s really the last we In Little Brother, there are good guys and bad hear of any sort of complexity as far as white guys, people who misuse power and people privilege goes. The rest of the book is more who use it for the good of mankind, and there concerned with the world of pre-DHS (every- is no grey area in between. An easy narrative, thing is peachy!) and the world of post-DHS one that is very familiar to an American audi- (surveillance state!). ence. What would this text have looked like if This is most evident in the way that the the villains were characters, rather than stock primary antagonists in the text are presented. torturer types? In a strange way, being on the Early on, Marcus is held at gunpoint by “face- receiving end of torture highlights the need for less, eyeless” men in gas masks (17). The theme institutions that protect individual rights—but of uniformed similarity continues describing Doctorow’s texts focuses on Marcus’s view of all of the American uniformed personnel who things, a very black and white world. It might are square jawed, handsome, and unremark- be safe to say that the text is showing the per- able (18). The main villain is “severe haircut spective of a seventeen–year–old, and leave it lady” (21) who doesn’t get a name (Carrie John- at that, but the way that Doctorow’s manifesto
3 gnovis Journal Fall 2014 Volume XV, Issue 1 • • and neoliberal rhetoric sneaks into the text re- alyze that data. The question of whether or ally hamstrings that sort of interpretation. not it should be happening is irrelevant, rather, Little Brother is a love-letter to capital, to what we should be asking is about the method- owning things in the truest sense of the word. ologies of data analysis and the practices that Within this context, another binary is set up— emerge from them; how data is placed next complete ownership vs. conditional ownership. to other data and used to make certain types Early in the text, Marcus loads an operating of conclusions. As Louise Amoore outlines in system onto his Xbox that allows him to be her work The Politics of Possibility, big data is invisible to anyone who might be attempting being used to make security decisions, and the to spy on him. He thinks: “The best part of methodology is not sound in many instances: all this is how it made me feel: in control. My “To put the matter simply, it is of lesser conse- technology was working for me, serving me, quence whether a risk assessment accurately protecting me. It wasn’t spying on me. This is captures a set of circumstances in the world, why I loved technology: if you used it right, it than whether the models can be refined for suf- could give you power and privacy” (33). The ficient precision to engage action.” (67). When relationship to things in this text hinges upon data is used to fight possibility rather than a notion about sovereignty over one’s objects, probability, kids are thrown in prisons for no where one has power over life and death in the reason. Foucaultian sense—nobody else gets to make Little Brother doesn’t think that this is true decisions about the things that a person owns. at all, perhaps most clearly illustrated when Marcus goes “freegan” with another charac- Not to be obtuse, but this view of owner- ter in the book, Zeb: “Zeb had showed me a ship is a strange one indeed. Ownership is not secret, something I hadn’t anticipated: there simply a binary of owning/not owning. You was a whole hidden world out there, a way of might own a piece of land, but you do not own getting by without participating in the system” the sky above; you might own an ax, but you (123). Freegans are dependent upon the waste don’t get to use it to do whatever you want. of others, their relationship is inextricably tied The rule of law limits ownership. Computers to the system that sustains their lives. To re- and technology especially complicate this no- turn to Butler: “Let’s face it. We’re undone by tion, because you cannot own a network, by each other. And if we’re not, we’re missing its very definition. In the anonymous space something” (23). While she is speaking about that Marcus and the thousands of others us- the way that individuals are tied to each other ing hacked Xboxes cohabitate, who owns the emotionally, societies work the same way as messages sent? At what point does a string well. of numbers switch owners? Is an email that I Marcus quotes this line from the Declara- have sent to another email account no longer tion of Independence three times in the text: mine? I don’t intend to answer any of these questions, because this debate is for an entirely different paper, but my point is that ownership Governments are instituted among in the traditional neoliberal sense is not as clear men, deriving their just powers and easy as Doctorow’s protagonist would like from the consent of the governed, us to think. Just like leaving footprints in a that whenever any form of govern- walk through mud, computers leave footprints. ment becomes destructive of these Whom does that information belong to? Ear- ends, it is the right of the people to lier in this paper, when I spoke about having alter or abolish it, and to institute already arrived in the world that Doctorow new government, laying its founda- fears, I would counter with this—everything tion on such principles, and orga- leaves data; data is traceable, it can be tracked. nizing its powers in such form, as We now have the ability to compile and an- to them shall seem most likely to
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effect their safety and happiness.3 searches. We win freedom by hav- ing the courage and the conviction to live every day freely and act as Government for the people, by the people. It a free society, no matter how great is evident throughout the text that big govern- the threats are on the horizon (133). ment has become corrupt and bent upon ruin- ing the lives of the little guy. Once again, this is a deflection, an oversimplification of how Returning to earlier in this paper, Doctorow the US government has been able to suspend identifies “the right to be left alone.” I think the Bill of Rights and illegally detain and tor- that is what Huang means by freedom here, ture individuals considered a national security but I am not sure. The word itself is used so threat. Timothy Kaufman-Osborne identifies many times in the text that it loses its meaning. that: What kind of freedom are we talking about here? Negative freedom—the freedom to act without restraints? Or positive freedom, the . . . when the Bush administration power and freedom to reach ones’ potential? has found it politically expedient to The text is interested more with the former. secure authorization for executive Within the context of this paper, I view freedom prerogative in the form of stand- as primitive—it is simply the ability to choose ing law (as opposed to ad hoc au- and move about within a given set of parame- thorizations), more often than not, ters. Either you have that ability to choose or it has sought to evade any signifi- you do not. Doctorow raises interesting points cant restrictions on, and hence ac- through some of his characters as they ask the countability for, the exercise of that big questions that define the relationship be- power (11). tween restrictions of certain freedoms and se- curity. Ultimately, however, he decides upon It is not “the man” who has done this, faceless a definition that is vacuous—freedom means individuals like square haircut woman. No— getting to do what you want with the things it was individuals who had unchecked power that you buy as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone and freedom to exercise it as they saw fit. Pres- else—a decidedly negative sort of freedom. idents and Secretaries of Defense get to make A point that Doctorow makes that I am in decisions that are unchecked by government agreement with is his discussion of security. writ large. It has been a long slow process, Bruce Schneier, a security technologist, writes which we are already in the throes of. the other half of the Afterward. He makes Parceled up with the love of the Declara- the point that the best security systems are the tion of Independence is an overstated love of ones that are open and available to access—the freedom. The word itself appears 46 times in more available something is, the more likely it the 140–page text. The book ends with an after- is that people have tried to break into it. Mar- word by Andrew “bunnie” Huang, who is one cus also goes over this in his narration about of the first people to hack the Xbox. He writes: how cryptography works: “There’s only one kind of crypto that anyone uses: crypto that’s public, open and can be deployed by anyone. Little Brother is a reminder that no That’s how you know it works” (22). matter how unpredictable the fu- Doctorow’s other work displays similar lev- ture may be, we don’t win freedom els of activism. Recently, his popular blog Boing through security systems, cryp- Boing started their “Reset the Net” campaign, tography, interrogations and spot which is a manifesto and set of downloadable 3This is quoted from Little Brother.
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tools that protect the phones and computers of people into monsters, which is within every- users from surveillance. Looking at articles un- one’s capacity given the right set of circumstances. der the category “Surveillance” also provides That is the ultimate consequence of runaway plenty of articles about how to protect personal sovereignty, and we should not forget that just privacy. because we have been lucky so far. I do not think any of these things in isola- tion are unproductive to the conversation about References privacy and security, but Little Brother is one of Doctorow’s most popular works, and is readily [1] Amoore, Louise. The Politics of Possibil- available and easily accessible. It reads as a ity: Risk and Security beyond Probability. manifesto, one that pits the little guy against Durham: Duke UP, 2013. Print. the “man,” and I am not entirely comfortable with that notion, as I have shown above. I think [2] Butler, Judith. Precarious Life: The Powers that if you’re going to be writing manifestos in of Mourning and Violence. London: Verso, the guise of young adult literature, there is a 2004. Print. certain responsibility to that audience. [3] Doctorow, Cory. Little Brother. N.p.: I think openness is the word of the day here, n.p., n.d. Craphound. Cory Doc- and if I were to rewrite Little Brother, I would torow. Web. 29 June 2014.
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