Shoulder? So Who Is Reading

¶ … Shoulder?

So who is reading over your shoulder? Who is this person who wants to know what you are reading? The very title of this essay sounds like an admonition. The reader is being warned about some unknown or unsuspected danger. The reader is quickly trapped because the title is catchy enough. It could have very well been a title for some suspense thriller. And that element is suspense is what grabs reader's attention.

The opening paragraph serves as a "tone-setter." It leads to the main purpose by first explaining why reading over the shoulder makes a person feel uncomfortable and makes him edgy. I don't see any reason for author's slight deviation into how a person can start viewing himself through the watcher's eyes because clearly that has nothing to do with the real objective of the article. It would have served as a very good example for a more philosophical essay but for an opinion piece based on factual information, the deviation appeared out of place. But the tone is still important. It tells the reader that such an activity is never desired, never well received and always makes the object of observation feel uneasy.

Once the tone has been set, the author delves into the real purpose of the article. The Patriot Act is what the author wants to comment on. She carefully builds a clear link between watching over your shoulder activity and the Patriot Act. The reader is not asked to do the job of linking up since author has done that very well. But it is not exactly the Act itself that is the main issue; it is the activities that are undertaken due to this Act which seem to bother the author. And the main activity discussed in the article is FBI's access into a person's reading interests and activities.

As sinister as it may sound, FBI has actually got access to every person's reading habits- thanks to the Patriot Act that has forced libraries to cooperate with the government. Clearly the author is against such undesired intrusion: "This sort of secrecy is not only chilling, it is ripe for potential abuse." But instead of lashing out against on the premise of constitutional rights, which has been done to death, the author takes a new approach. Her judgment is based more on objective reasoning than passion. The author points out that the main reason she opposes such intrusion is because it can lead to confusion, wrong indictment and serious abuse because what FBI learns about a person's reading interests cannot possibly give a full picture of a person's psyche or intent. "This is a classic sitcom plot line: an observer misconstrues a sequence of unrelated details and then has a skewed perception of the protagonist."

Is the author clear in her objective? I would say she is absolutely certain of what she is talking about. Her intended audience is the average American who has recently been bombarded with threats of intrusion. The average American however is not living in constant fear, as government wants us to believe. Citizens are intelligent and aware enough to understand the limits of fear, the scope of government's authority and the impact of unnecessary intrusion.

What makes the essay better than other similar opinion pieces is author's dispassionate stance on the issue. She has the same concerns as everyone else but has presented them very objectively as to make the argument based more on logic than passion alone. The government has lately become very intrusive and not everyone welcomes this unwanted monitoring. In fact, most people resent it deeply because not only does it violate their constitutional rights, it also leads to wrongful indictments. "The FBI is policing our minds by purporting to read them."