Cory Doctorow’s intentions in writing Little Brother are many and varied and all of them worthy. This is a timely book that tackles some hard issues being felt not only in the US but around the world and does so in a cheeky, entertaining way while arguing very sensibly for reason to prevail.

Marcus is a high school student in San Francisco of a few years from now when ‘security’ systems have become much more pervasive. Even the classroom halls have monitors that identify students by studying their gait — face recognition systems being deemed ‘unconstitutional’. But Marcus is adept at fooling such software, especially when he wants to cut class to play the latest episode of an online treasure hunt game. Then terrorists blow up the Oakland Bay Bridge, Marcus and friends are picked up by Department of Homeland Security goons, and when Marcus refuses to unlock his phone for them he is tortured, abused and scared into compliance before being dumped back on the streets. One of his friends, Darryl — who was injured in the panic after the bombing— doesn’t emerge from custody and Marcus vows to hit back. So begins a new chapter in a city where freedom and civil disobedience go hand in hand.

Little Brother tackles the issue of national security head on. How far can civil rights be curtailed in the interests of safety? When does a state begin to subvert the very things it is meant to stand for? And when it does, who has won — the people or the terrorists? Doctorow is very technology savvy and through the book he shows that the security counter-measures that are meant to keep us safe are, in the final analysis, ineffectual against truly determined terrorists and manage only to keep the innocent populace scared and subdued. It reminded me also of the chilling World War II poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller that starts, ‘They came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.’ (Wiki it if it’s new to you.) But Little Brother is in no way preachy or didactic — I read it in a single sitting and enjoyed it thoroughly. It does however have at its heart some powerful and eternal truths. Most notably the fact that when people of good conscience place their trust wholly in their government and don’t continually question its actions and push it to find a better way to cure our shared problems, we often end up with the leadership we deserve.