Privacy - a short story

             Just looking at her from across a room can put a smile on my face. Her smell makes me feel at home and her skin is smoother than silk. I feel electricity when we touch. She is the girl of my dreams and nothing can compare in my eyes. She was everything to me and now she’s gone. They took her.

I live in a world where privacy is outlawed and very few have complete control and make the decisions for everyone. Things were not always this way. People today seem to have forgotten the way things were before “The Lockdown.” Privacy was once respected as a right to everyone in this country and the people had the power to elect representatives to govern the country. Thinking about how much has changed so quickly almost makes me want to laugh, but mostly just makes me want to cry. It amazes me how quickly people forget about the past, too busy with their meaningless jobs assigned to them by the council, but I can never forget.

I have thought a lot about how society could have turned into what it is today and I find myself always coming back to one word; fear. About ten years ago, before everything changed, there was a series of terrorist attacks on our country. It started with bus bombings in major cities and escalated into a major attack on the white house using a hijacked commercial passenger plane. Like a growing fire, fear consumed the country. For the first time in a very long time, the warfront was in our backyards instead of across the globe. The president at the time declared a “War on Terror” and vowed to put an end to the violence and to punish the people responsible. Our armies invaded a few countries in the Middle East, toppling their armies, with the validation that they were responsible and their leaders were producing and harboring weapons of mass destruction. On top of the aggressive foreign policy, new laws were passed making it easier for government agencies to retrieve information from unknowing citizens and also gave more unchecked power to the president and other top government officials. People readily accepted these laws because they wanted to feel protected from the unknown threat.

The attacks on our cities seemed to slow for a while after the new laws and people began to feel more comfortable again. The public praised the president for putting these laws into place and the governing officials were given more power than ever before, and they liked it. Suddenly massive attacks around the country erupted and people were driven off the edge. In the name of patriotism and protecting our country, our leaders decreed complete control and put in place a mass increase in intelligence retrieval, abolishing privacy. The attacks stopped but the power was never returned.

We are always being watched. In public places there are cameras around every corner and drones constantly hovering overhead collecting data. Our homes do not offer any more privacy. All of our electronics are always on, always watching, always listening, and always collecting. Everything we do on these devices goes straight to massive database collections, waiting to be reviewed for potential threats. This was what we now refer to as “The Lockdown.”

I met Mirna years before the events leading up to The Lockdown and since then she has been the most important thing in my life. She was arrested yesterday because the government found evidence that she might be a potential threat to the state. Under The Lockdown decree, any citizen suspected of being a potential terrorist, or having communications with any suspected terrorists, will be removed from society. In reality this means that the government can imprison citizens without just cause. It seems as if almost a third of the people I know have been taken and never seen again. Most people do not question anything because they have been brainwashed into thinking it is required to keep us safe. The word “patriotism” is thrown around a lot in the public and media. The minority that hasn't been convinced that The Lockdown is the only thing keeping us from more terrorist attacks is afraid to question authority because they are afraid to be taken.

Last night was our three year anniversary and I came home from work early so I would have time to make a surprise dinner. In the middle of our candlelit dinner our door exploded open and the room filled with eye-burning white light and an ear-bursting boom. I was left dazed, stumbling on the floor trying to get up. When my eyesight focused I saw three men in heavy black swat armor restraining Mirna. Instinctively I ran at the men dragging Mirna out of our apartment. Before I could get to them I was tackled to the floor by two other officers that came from behind me. Mirna was thrashing at the men but it was no use. Pinned to the floor I watched as they took her. She was crying and looking right as me. My ears were still ringing so I couldn’t hear anything but as she was passing through our doorway her lips formed the words “I love you.”

When she was gone the two burley swat members holding me down stood up and casually walked out of the room where my door would have been less than two minutes earlier. I did not get up. I stayed on the floor staring at the doorway unable to process the events that just occurred. I started to scream as loud as I could. I felt as if someone ripped a piece of me away. I felt extreme sadness and rage simultaneously. I felt alone.