Quick Impressions of Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow, is an exciting YA novel pitting the impassioned and romantic computer gamer/hacker, Marcus, against the terrorizing power and force of the U.S. government's Homeland Security Department.

Marcus and his cybergaming friends are imprisoned by the HSD following an attack that destroys one of San Francisco's Bay area bridges.  As the feds clamp down on freedom of speech and privacy, Marcus resists these restrictions through clever underground cyber tactics and appeals to youth and citizen justice.

The fictional basis of this story contains many truths and author, Doctorow, includes statements from both a security technologist and a professed hacker, to promote the Bill of Rights and rights to privacy on the Internet.   Although particular styles of music and XBox games may eventually date this novel, its underlying premise of harnessing technology for good and for evil; and the compromises our post 9-11 world must make between justice, liberty and security offer probing research and discussion questions for the high school reader.