Little Brother
Big Brother crosses a line after an act of terrorism in San Francisco. Little Brother finds a way to watch back. Nail-biting!
Marcus Yallow is in the wrong place at the wrong time. He and his friends have skipped school to participate in an on-line scavenger hunt, just when terrorists blow up the Bay Bridge in San Francisco. Agents from the Department of Homeland Security find them out on the streets just minutes after the explosion, and immediately take them into custody. Marcus gets out, but his friend Darryl never does. Marcus vows to take back his Constitutional rights and get Darryl out of "jail", but to do so, he might have to cross a line.
Marcus is intelligent and articulate. I don't know if he's exactly likable, but he is passionate about the ability to communicate without being deemed a criminal. I learned a lot about today's technology and all the ways it is intruding on our lives. When nothing is wrong, it seems to be benign, even convenient. But when it's deemed a matter of "national security", our privacy and freedom of movement can easily be impinged.
I learned a lot about hacking and security, which was food for thought. It was really great to watch Marcus grow. He starts out reacting as many teens do: impulsively and without thought to the lines he's crossing. When he sees the mess he's creating for San Francisco, as well as for himself, he starts to see that his actions were no better than those who falsely imprisoned him and tortured him. The ending might be a little too neat, but Marcus does not exactly get off scott-free. The point is, he learned from what happened to him, and is now using his energy to watch Big Brother back. Includes an interesting discussion of security and privacy versus secrecy by a security technologist named Bruce Schneier.
