George Orwell's novel 1984 depicts a fictional character named "Big Brother", who acted as an enigmatic dictator in a totalitarian state (Orwell, 1949). In a society where every citizen is under the surveillance of "Big Brother", most comply with the decisions and orders of authorities out of fear, except for a few. In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg, a former US military analyst employed by the RAND Corporation, sparked a national political controversy when he leaked top-secret Pentagon documents to the New York Times (Bean, 2014). These newspapers exposed presidential deception about the Vietnam War by revealing that the United States had secretly expanded its scope (Bean, 2014). In 2010, Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning, a US Army soldier, leaked the largest set of classified documents in history to WikiLeaks (Bean, 2014). The information consisted of large archives of confidential government documents and the US government revealed that they were in the hands of Osama bin Laden (Bean, 2014). Even with the amount of information released by these so-called “whistleblowers,” no official investigation into alleged war crimes or government misconduct has been opened (Bean, 2014). Ellsberg and Manning, however, were charged under the Espionage Act with providing factual information to American citizens. Ellsberg said: “The president, his spokespeople and his officers lie to the public every day. If you can't accept the idea that the president is lying to the public for all kinds of reasons, you can't stay a week in this government at this level, where you know about it." (Kreisler, personal communication, 1998). Privacy and civil rights violations and fear of... middle of paper ...... threaten Patriot Act,” The New York Times. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/us/politics/20patriot.html?ref=usapatriotact&_r=1&TedTalks. (March 18, 2014). Edward Snowden: This is how we are taking back the Internet [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVwAodrjZMYTedTalks. (March 20, 2014). Richard Ledgett: NSA responds to Edward Snowden's TED talk [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLNXIXingyUPew Research Center. (June 17, 2013). “The public is divided on the impact of the NSA leak, but most want Snowden to be prosecuted [Data Set]. Retrieved from http://www.people-press.org/files/legacy-pdf/6-17-13%20NSA%20release.pdfPew Research Center. (January 20, 2014). “Obama's NSA speech has little impact on skeptical public” [Dataset]. Retrieved from http://www.people-press.org/files/legacy-pdf/1-20-14%20NSA%20Release.pdf