Little Brother Essay

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In the novel Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, Marcus Yallow - a high school student at Cesar Chavez High - is in a constant struggle to free himself from the power of the wicked DHS (Department of Homeland Security). This really bothers Marcus and he deals with this issue throughout the book. Marcus managed to change this by fighting back and relieving the power the DHS had over him. The DHS had the state of California under over the top security and treated everyone like potential terrorists. This really bothered Marcus. Marcus strongly believes in the right of privacy, the constitution, and freedom in general. The DHS has everyone being tightly tracked. For example, there is gait recognition (cameras that can track people through the way…show more content…
He decided to fight back and take down the DHS. The hardest part of this was that he didn’t have much support from most of his close friends and family ( including his Dad and best friends Van and Jolu). Marcus started to do this by handing out copies of the XNET to people across San Francisco. XNET is a software that can be downloaded on a XBOX that keeps all activity private on the internet and what not completely private and encrypted. The XNET community grew large and thousands of kids like Marcus believed in the same cause. He was a leader on there under the name of M1k3y. This giant community protested for civil rights and jammed the security system by messing with its flaws. For example, when Marcus made copied fast passes of multiple people and scanned them as if he was them going across bridges and messed up the system. Other XNET people did this too. This all caused confusion, but didn’t do much but build up a community. The real turning point of Marcus fighting back to free everyone from the DHS is when he told a major reporter named Barbara his story. The story consisted of how he was taken to an island for interrogation, how they are holding people in cells, how they are mistreating the prisoners, and his whole story involving the XNET. This story was published and the State Guards went to their facility on Treasure Island and arrested the DHS and policemen working there. Marcus and everyone else were freed from this absurd security system and the innocent people returned
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