Wait...How is Little Brother Dystopian?

Little Brother is a very current novel. Some people say that it is "set 5 minutes into the future," which means that any of the events in the novel are very real and could happen in today's world. It's actually somewhat scarily close to reality; some students in the States are forced to carry tracker cards in school. In some schools with this policy, a student can be expelled if he or she refuses to carry the tracker card.
     Cory Doctorow set the novel this way so he can make a lovely blend of up-to-date hacker technologies and a great dystopian society. It also features plenty of action and suspense. Also, because it is a young adult novel, Doctorow also creates a romantic element to make the adult issues seem less urgent.
    
Dystopian novels are always written to prove a point and/or to acknowledge and try to solve a problem. Doctorow's novel has been written to illustrate many problems in society and to help people acknowledge them. It also proves several points.

The main issues in this novel is Security vs. Privacy. Marcus and his friends are followed practically everywhere in this novel, even before the Bay Bridge blew up and he got imprisoned. He knew he had nothing to hide, yet still had everything to hide. He was innocent, but he still had private things on his phone and email, just like any other teenage hacker, or any teenager for that matter. There are just some things in our lives that we don't want to make public.

In the book, everyone's privacy is stripped away.
They get tracked from their cards, including their credit cards, FasTrak (toll passes), etc. People get pulled over for having irregular travel routes. I think this part is particularly lame, because a lot of people would have to take an irregular route to work, since the Bay Bridge blew up, and so did a BART tunnel.

Doctorow makes an excellent point in this novel--everyone should have some privacy in their life, especially if they are innocent, everyday people. Taking that away from people would make them feel way too exposed. It might make you feel guilty.

Everyone has a right to privacy!