It is remarkable how we are constantly navigating the blurred lines between the real and digital worlds, often giving it unconsciously our full attention to devices that have become an extension of ourselves and daily lives, as technology is actively changing our experiences and lives with every tap, swipe, and like contributing to our online lives. Governments are using technology for control through surveillance, restrictions, and data collection, which is often justified by national security. This system relies on laws, digital foundation, and software like face recognition and firewalls. While they aim to order, it raises concerns and questions about privacy and civil liberties. In the novel, Chain-Gang All Stars the author Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah uses the theme of technology and government control to portray technology as a central to government control by using advanced broadcasting and surveillance to create a system of  television and games. This system throughout the novel dehumanizes prisoners, while turning their suffering into a profitable display, and manipulating the public perception, constantly strengthening the government’s authority and control. The novel also critiques the “idea” of earning freedom through suffering and exposes the brutal realities faced by disadvantaged communities within the system. Technology helps governments serve and protect citizens, but also enables surveillance, causing worries about freedom and privacy. Some might say it is needed for security, but others fear for abuse, calling for oversight. As government tools are being offered through technology for public service and security, it poses challenges to balance innovation with freedom and privacy.  

Technology’s rapid advancements has provided governments with major unprecedented tools and opportunities for surveillance and control, raising high awareness and concerns about individual liberties. Like one major significant advancement that has started to seize technology and government control is AI, AI has recently started to be used in many essentials like jobs, software development, workflow automation, task augmentation, etc. By doing these responsibilities, it is taking over repetitive tasks, routines, data-heavy assignments, which is compressing human workloads. As indicated by a source like SCOOPSTATES, “Most AI challenges are arriving at government's doorsteps unbidden. One state official shared with StateScoop an email they received from the graphic design platform Canva, which noted that hundreds of registered user accounts from their organization who were using the tool were “at risk of exposing the state’s intellectual property as we begin training our AI with user content” (STATESCOOP). Governments are often playing “catch up” when it comes to controlling technology, especially AI. Challenges related to AI are emerging rapidly and unexpectedly, rather than being correctly anticipated and managed proactively. The phrase “Most AI challenges are arriving at government’s doorsteps unbidden” highlights a significant reactive stance. It implies that governments aren’t taking initiative or setting the terms of AI development or its integration into existing services and data systems. This points to a significant gap in governmental control and over how other technologies handle sensitive public-data, indicating a struggle to keep pace with rapid evolution of AI and the potential impacts. The source dives deeper into the governments struggle to control technology purchasing as new innovations bypass existing regulations. The source further indicates, “Government has strict guidelines that are more conservative than what the private sector has, but then they procure technologies that don’t necessarily follow government guidelines” (STATESCOOP). This quote points to a consistent challenge where the governmental guidelines are set for technology despite their formulation. Governments frequently struggle to keep their technology “rules” up to date and effective, creating a gap between the official policies and the way technology is used and adapted. Government data is also being used to map traffic patterns and plan maintenance. The same source also reports, Utah Chief Technology Officer Chris Williamson states, “I can now make a map of what a commuting network looks like for our environment within the state of Utah and I know what theoretical road congestion is going to look like,’ he said of the imagined project” (STATESCOOP). This highlights the potential for technology, specifically AI and data analysis to solve real world foundational systems, along with the challenges and problems. This quote also touches on the idea of predictive governance, and where the data is used and stored to predict the future needs and actively address them. Williamson focuses on applications like road maintenance and the approach to implementing new technologies within the government. Microsoft also plays a significant role in AI development and deployment, specifically in the public sector. Finegold from Microsoft, emphasizes that the challenges and responsibilities associated with AI cannot be handled by one company alone and that it would require a united effort from all stakeholders to achieve. In the article Berry Finegold states, “It’s not something that Microsoft can solve, government can solve, users can solve, the public can solve,’ he said. It really, truly is a collective effort by everybody” (STATESCOOP). This quote emphasizes the relationship of AI's development and application. It implies the challenges and responsibilities surrounding AI are too big for one group, like a technology company or government, to handle by themselves. Since AI touches so many aspects of our daily lives, from privacy to jobs and how we make decisions, it is really important that companies, governments, and citizens work together to guide its development and make it certain it is beneficial for all. 

Government increased influence of advanced technology for digital surveillance creating a complicated relationship between state power and the citizens right to privacy. An article titled “Government Mandated Software a Looming Threat to Freedom", by Daniel Kahn Gilleman of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project discusses how governments requiring specific software on smartphones poses a serious risk of privacy to individuals. Kahn states, “ The notion of government-mandated software, whether it is a separate app or a routine part of the operating system, represents a grave threat to our privacy” (ACLU). This deepens the concerns of governments mandated particular software on smartphones and devices is a serious invasion of privacy. It implies that this software regardless of its a app by itself or integrated into the system or device, but it could grant governments access to a large amount of personal data. This data, when it is exposed and combined with persistent identifiers, could make a detailed picture of an individual’s lifestyle, which could be misused if it falls into the wrong hands. Governments can utilize technological platforms and applications to gain unprecedented visibility into citizens lives with potential to control access and information. According to the same article, “Imagine what a government trying to suppress a political rival or a marginalized minority could do with this level of fine-grained access and control over the fabric of social interaction, commerce, and transportation” (ACLU). This implies that technology provides governments with a detailed and widespread level of control over people’s daily lives from how they interact to what they buy and how they move around. It advises that this deep access could be easily misused to suppress political opponents or groups. The phrase “fine-grained access” that could let them manipulate every detail of how society functions. It mostly highlights how technology isn’t just about convenience; it also creates powerful new ways for the government to oversight control. Mandatory technology use by governments carries the risk of enabling intrusive control and surveillance through features like software updates. The article also states, “The greatest danger to liberty is the government’s ability to control the technology that citizens use, especially when that technology is mandatory” (ACLU). This highlights the matter that when governments mandate the use of specific technologies, such as digital ID apps, they gain significant authority. This power could be abused through software updates that “introduce” unwanted features or tracking abilities, violating civil liberties. This emphasizes the risk of government control over digital tools. Overall, technology gives governments a powerful and detailed ability to monitor and influence nearly every feature of society, from how people communicate to what they buy and where they go. While this can offer multiple benefits like efficiency and or security, it also creates a significant risk that this level of control could be misused to stop individual freedom, target specific groups, and or stop political opposition, resulting in disintegrating privacy and personal independence. 

While new technologies in the public sector promise improved efficiency and transparency for citizens, their application often faces significant challenges like data security concerns and the digital divide, potentially limiting fair access and trust. The idea that governments use technology in many ways across all their operations, which sets the stage for explaining the categories of technological applications in the public sector. Hinkley discusses, “The public sector covers an enormous set of occupations and activities, and technology plays many different roles within that landscape. This report sorts technologies into five overlapping categories” (UC Berkeley Labor Center). This quote doesn’t directly prove anything about technology and government control but it states an important statement such as how governments are setting the stage and utilizing technology. It highlights that the public sector is diverse, and technology isn’t just one small thing, it is a wide variety of roles within it and the system behind it. Technology impacts public services and the relationship between citizens and their government. The author presented the exploring of opportunities and challenges of technology adoption in the public sector. The author reports, “The possibilities for technology to greatly improve public services as significant, and recent public investments in infrastructure and internal technology capacity development in infrastructure and capacity” (UC Berkeley Labor Center). It highlights the possibility of technology to enhance public services, while also acknowledging the need for investment and development in infrastructure and capacity. This dives deeper into the impacts on work and workers and discusses technology adoption in the public sector is not just about efficiency, but is also about the fundamental changes to job roles and public interactions. According to the article, states, “The growing adoption of complex technologies is likely to restructure work processes as well as to reshape the interactions between workers and the public” (UC Berkeley Labor Center).   Technology can change how work is done and how people interact with public services, implying a shift in control and management. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on technology adoption within the public sector points out that the shift to hybrid work models is likely to establish technologies that enable greater oversight and automation of government operations.  This section implies, “The apparent permanency of hybrid work, spurred by COVID-19, is likely to continue to drive increased automation, monitoring of workers, and reliance on cloud-based data systems” (UC Berkeley Labor Center). Technology adoption in the public sector, accelerated by the pandemic is leading to increased automation and monitoring of forms of government control. Overall the adoption of technology accelerated by crises like the pandemic, is reshaping government functions by enabling increased automation, worker monitoring, and reliance on data systems by altering the interactions of control and public interaction. 

Another chief source that shows us significant technology and government control is the novel Chain Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. Kwame dives deeper into the understanding of technology and government control and uses it to critique and portray a unique version of technology and government control. Throughout the book fighting is used as a way of entertainment for prisoners to earn their freedom to live. This describes the final moments of the Melancholia Bishop’s participation in a ritualistic event. The author states, “ For years this had been their sacred ritual. The seven bells of Melancholia Bishop. They’d seen her wipe scum off the earth. They’d seen her kill women and men whom they’d once claimed to love. Now she stood and looked out for them the last time. Soon she would be free” (Kwame 5). It highlights the nature of the event, and the involvement of freedom possibly through death or finality. The description of her past actions, “wipe scum off the earth..kill women and men” emphasize the role as a feared figure within society, as well as the phrase “soon to be free” carries the sense of being released from potential fate. A footnote used in the novel points to a connection between technological advancements and isolation of government control within a democratic framework. This further indicates, “America locks more people in isolation than any other democratic country” (Kwame 125). This implies that the US government’s use of technology, or its policies aided by technology, results in a higher rate of incarceration and isolation compared to other democracies. The footnote draws a connection between these technological advancements and the specific outcome of mass incarceration and isolation in the United States, positioning it as an example of government control within a democratic structure. As the novel is soon to reach its ending, the characters are soon to realize that the use of technology as far as using fighting as entertainment and source to be freed, is wrong. They start to slowly aim to escape the system by protesting, undermine the rules, and survive long enough to earn freedom. Kwame states, “The protestors far outnumbered the fans, the black they wore distinguishing them from the people who were just there to be entertained. But still, in the middle of it, if you didn’t know what was what, it would’ve been hard to tell the people who were there because they wanted to see Staxxx from the people who were there because they wanted to see her free” (Kwame 270). Technology is characterized by enhanced automation and reliance on data driven systems. The novel pimples that this technological integration serves to manage and potentially crush the population, blurring the lines between entertainment and genuine disagreement. Technology’s growth empowers governments to monitor and control many aspects of your life through technology, which sparked concerns over privacy, freedom, and the balance of power.

To conclude, the increasing integration of technology into government operations is leading into a new era of control, characterized by enhanced automation, reliance on data driven systems, and oversight of public sector workers. This significant shift redefines the relationship between citizens and the state, showing opportunities for efficiency and challenges concerning privacy and accountability.