What term that is a mechanism for the disappearance of inconvenient documents comes from George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four in which it is a slot into which officials deposit records to be destroyed?
"Eurasia against Eastasia or Eurasia and Eastasia against Oceania. However, as Goldstein's book points out, each superstate is so powerful that even an alliance of the other two cannot destroy it, which results in a continuing stalemate. From time to time, one of the states betrays its ally and sides with its former enemy. In Oceania, when that occurs, the Ministry of Truth rewrites history to make it appear that the current state of affairs is the way it has always been, and documents with contradictory information are destroyed in the memory hole. Goldstein's book states that the war is"
"Winston Smith Winston Smith is a fictional character and the protagonist of George Orwell's 1949 novel ""Nineteen Eighty-Four"". The character was employed by Orwell as an everyman in the setting of the novel, a ""central eye ... [the reader] can readily identify with."" Winston Smith works as a clerk in the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth, where his job is to rewrite historical documents so they match the constantly changing current party line. This involves revising newspaper articles and doctoring photographs—mostly to remove ""unpersons,"" people who have fallen afoul of the party. Because of his proximity to the"
"publish these books. The two books were protected by copyright in the United States, but they were in the public domain in some other countries. Notes and annotations for the books made by users on their devices were left in a separate file but ""rendered useless"" without the content to which they were directly linked. The move prompted outcry and comparisons to ""Nineteen Eighty-Four"" itself: in the novel, books, magazines, and newspapers in public archives that contradict the ruling party are either edited long after being published or destroyed outright; the removed materials go ""down the memory hole"", the nickname"
"office. Most commonly it is prosecuted as a crime for perjury by a non governmental official primarily because of prosecutorial discretion. ""Anticipatory obstruction of justice"" has recently appeared on the horizon in cases such as ""US v. Wolff"". However, the operative section, 1519, passed in 2002, has thus far languished in quasi-obscurity. Titled “Destruction, Alteration or Falsification of Records in Federal Investigations and Bankruptcy,” the provision was passed under Section 802 of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002. The text of the statute is relatively straightforward: Whoever knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsified, or makes a false entry in"
"book world by sinister characters in hard hats that have the number ""13"" printed on them. File 13 ""File 13"" is a euphemism for the trash can. The phrase is especially used in the U.S. military, and is less common outside of the United States. In the United Kingdom, for instance, the expression ""round file"" or ""circular file"" is more common (in reference to trash cans typically being round). Many Unix-like operating systems have a similar reference known as /dev/null. Expressions such as ""I'll place that memo in file 13"" are often heard in offices as a joking way of"
"purpose and artistic purpose into one whole."" Orwell's most famous work, however, is ""Nineteen Eighty-Four"" (published in 1949), many of whose terms and concepts, such as ""Big Brother"", ""doublethink"", ""thoughtcrime"", ""Newspeak"", ""Room 101"", ""telescreen"", ""2 + 2 = 5"", and ""memory hole"", have entered into common use. ""Nineteen Eighty-Four"" popularised the adjective ""Orwellian"", which describes official deception, secret surveillance, and manipulation of recorded history by a totalitarian or authoritarian state. The poet Jan Kochanowski's play, ""The Dismissal of the Greek Envoys"" (1578), the first tragedy written in the Polish language, recounts an incident leading up to the Trojan War. Its"
"Morgue file A morgue file originally was the paper-folders containing old files and notes that were kept by criminal investigators, and old article clippings kept by newspaper reporters, in case they became of later use as a quick-reference. In modern usage, its scope has expanded to cover many post-production materials for use of reference, or an inactive job file. The term is popular in the newspaper business to describe the file that holds past issues flats. The term has also been used by illustrators, comic book artists, designers and teachers. The newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst forbade his papers from"
"large incinerator used for :censorship: ""Nineteen Eighty-Four""'s protagonist Winston Smith, who works in the Ministry of Truth, is routinely assigned the task of revising old newspaper articles in order to serve the propaganda interests of the government. For example, Smith may be called to retroactively change a statement about food rationing to reflect new policies. The memory hole is referenced while O'Brien tortures Smith; O'Brien produces evidence of a coverup by the Party, exciting Smith that such documentation exists. However, O'Brien then destroys the evidence in the memory hole and denies not only the existence of the evidence but also"
"be created and maintained, require that they must be maintained ""by the agency"" and ""readily found,"" and that the records must ""make possible a proper scrutiny by the Congress."" Section 1924 of Title 18 of the United States Code addresses the deletion and retention of classified documents, under which ""knowingly"" removing or housing classified information at an ""unauthorized location"" is subject to a fine, or up to a year in prison. Experts such as Metcalfe agree that these practices are allowed by federal law assuming that the material is not supposed to be classified, or at least these practices are"
"File 13 ""File 13"" is a euphemism for the trash can. The phrase is especially used in the U.S. military, and is less common outside of the United States. In the United Kingdom, for instance, the expression ""round file"" or ""circular file"" is more common (in reference to trash cans typically being round). Many Unix-like operating systems have a similar reference known as /dev/null. Expressions such as ""I'll place that memo in file 13"" are often heard in offices as a joking way of saying, ""I'm going to throw away that memo."" The first known citation of ""File 13"" was"
"correct scrivener's errors found in primary legislation. Over 18 minutes of the Watergate tapes were erased by Richard Nixon's secretary in a claimed clerical error. Some writers have suggested that this may have changed the course of American history. Clerical error A clerical error is an error on the part of an office worker, often a secretary or personal assistant. It is a phrase which can also be used as an excuse to deflect blame away from specific individuals, such as high-powered executives, and instead redirect it to the more anonymous clerical staff. A clerical error in a legal document"
"dangerous thoughts from the mind. The term has been adopted into the English language to describe beliefs contrary to accepted norms and has retrospectively been used to describe some theological concepts such as disbelief or idolatry, or a rejection of strong philosophical or social principles. The Thought Police (""thinkpol"" in Newspeak) are the secret police of the novel ""Nineteen Eighty-Four"". It is their job to uncover and punish ""thoughtcrime"". The Thought Police use surveillance and psychological monitoring to find and eliminate members of society who challenge the party's authority and ideology. The Thought Police of Orwell and their pursuit of"
"to the actual or perceived enforcement of ideological orthodoxy in the political life of a society. Thought Police In the novel ""Nineteen Eighty-Four"" (1949), by George Orwell, the Thought Police (""Thinkpol"") are the secret police of the superstate Oceania, who discover and punish ""thoughtcrime"", personal and political thoughts unapproved by the Party. The Thinkpol use criminal psychology and omnipresent surveillance (telescreens, microphones, informers) to search for and find, monitor and arrest all citizens of Oceania who would commit ""thoughtcrime"" in challenge to the ""status quo"" authority of the Party and the regime of Big Brother. George Orwell's concept of ""thought"
"an individual into a larger system and frustrating an individual's self-development and freedom."" Marlin credits Orwell with effectively and passionately exposing the enslaving effects of propagandistic language. He points to ""Newspeak"", the language Orwell invented in his satirical novel ""Nineteen Eighty-Four"" to illustrate how words could reinforce the totalitarian power of a police state by eradicating historical memory and narrowing the range of thought. Marlin also refers to Orwell's famous 1946 essay ""Politics and the English Language"" which describes, for example, how a euphemism such as ""pacification"" served to cover up state violence and murder. ""The extraordinary thing,"" Marlin notes,"
"of spoken rumors, but few doubt the veracity of stories appearing in the news media. A related fallacy is, of course, that whatever has ""not"" been documented must not have happened. Although absence of evidence is evidence of absence, whether any given event happened is entirely independent of whether it was documented. In George Orwell's novel ""1984"", the Ministry of Truth has an entire department devoted to altering past editions of newspapers in the belief that changing documentation will change the public's perception of history. One of the novel's greatest ironies is that the Ministry of Truth deals exclusively in"
"George Orwell novel ""Nineteen Eighty-Four"", in which the world has come under omnipresent government surveillance. In the 68-page ruling, Leon said that he had ""serious doubts about the efficacy"" of the program. The U.S. government was unable to cite ""a single instance in which analysis of the NSA's bulk metadata collection actually stopped an imminent attack, or otherwise aided the government in achieving any objective that was time-sensitive."" The judge ruled that a 1979 case, ""Smith v. Maryland"", which established that phone metadata is not subject to the Fourth Amendment, did not apply to the NSA program as the U.S."
"Orwellian ""Orwellian"" is an adjective describing a situation, idea, or societal condition that George Orwell identified as being destructive to the welfare of a free and open society. It denotes an attitude and a brutal policy of draconian control by propaganda, surveillance, misinformation, denial of truth (doublethink), and manipulation of the past, including the ""unperson""—a person whose past existence is expunged from the public record and memory, practised by modern repressive governments. Often, this includes the circumstances depicted in his novels, particularly ""Nineteen Eighty-Four"" but political doublespeak is criticized throughout his work, such as in ""Politics and the English Language""."
"just disappear. It has been commonly suggested that this usage dates from the days when punched cards and/or punched tape were common. Card and paper-tape punches each had a receptacle for the 'chips' punched from the cards or tape to create the holes (rectangular in a card, round in a paper tape), which often looked like a bucket and was known by this name. By analogy it was jokingly suggested that the CPU, which in those days was an equipment rack of similar size to a large peripheral unit, contained a similar receptacle for lost data. A bucket is a"
"Thoughtcrime A thoughtcrime is an Orwellian neologism used to describe an illegal thought. The term was popularized in the dystopian novel ""Nineteen Eighty-Four"" by George Orwell, first published in 1949, wherein thoughtcrime is the criminal act of holding unspoken beliefs or doubts that oppose or question Ingsoc, the ruling party. In the book, the government attempts to control not only the speech and actions, but also the thoughts of its subjects. To entertain unacceptable thoughts is known as crimethink (or wrongthink) in Newspeak, the ideologically purified dialect of the party. Crimestop is a way to avoid crimethink by immediately purging"
"BBC office where George Orwell worked some years before writing his famous novel ""Nineteen Eighty-Four"". The original room 101 was demolished in the restructuring of Broadcasting House. Cast Courts (Victoria and Albert Museum) The Cast Courts (originally called the Architectural Courts) of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England, comprise two large halls. Unusually for a museum, the Cast Courts house a collection not of originals, but copies. Here are to be found reproductions of some of the most famous sculptures in the world. Most of the copies were made in the 19th century and in many cases they"
"confidential, or otherwise sensitive documents. The first paper shredder is credited to prolific inventor Abbot Augustus Low of Horseshoe, New York. His patent for a ""waste paper receptacle"" to offer an improved method of disposing of waste paper received a U.S. patent on August 31, 1909. 1909 Suppressor 1909 Gin rummy 1910 Headset 1911 Fifth wheel coupling 1911 Erector Set 1911 Binder clip A binder clip, or a banker's clip or foldback clip, is a simple device for binding sheets of paper together. It leaves the paper intact and can be removed quickly and easily unlike the staple. The binder"
"essay ""Notes on Nationalism"" about the lack of vocabulary needed to explain the unrecognised phenomena behind certain political forces. In ""Nineteen Eighty-Four"", the Party's artificial, minimalist language 'Newspeak' addresses the matter. O'Brien concludes: ""The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."" In the book, Inner Party member O'Brien describes the Party's vision of the future: A major theme of ""Nineteen Eighty-Four"" is censorship, especially in the Ministry of Truth, where photographs are modified and public archives rewritten to rid them of ""unpersons"" (persons who are erased from history by the"
"the product or service in order to gain sales, especially by competitive advantage. Many countries and states have enacted consumer protection laws intended to combat such fraud. A memory hole is a mechanism for the alteration or disappearance of inconvenient or embarrassing documents, photographs, transcripts, or other records, such as from a website or other archive, particularly as part of an attempt to give the impression that something never happened. Minimization is the opposite of exaggeration. It is a type of deception involving denial coupled with rationalization in situations where complete denial is implausible. A noble lie, which also could"
"of their past existence, is itself thoughtcrime; the concept that the person may have existed at one time and has disappeared cannot be expressed in Newspeak. Totalitarian regimes: Fiction: Newspeak Newspeak is the language of Oceania, a fictional totalitarian state and the setting of the novel ""Nineteen Eighty-Four"" (1949), by George Orwell. The ruling Party of Oceania created the Newspeak language to meet the ideological requirements of English Socialism (Ingsoc). Newspeak is a controlled language, of restricted grammar and limited vocabulary, meant to limit the freedom of thought—personal identity, self-expression, free will—that ideologically threatens the régime of Big Brother and"
"records. Sometimes they want to circulate copies of documents they create to several interested parties. Until the late 18th century, if an office wanted to keep a copy of an outgoing letter, a clerk had to write out the copy by hand. This technology continued to be prevalent through most of the 19th century. For this purpose offices employed copy clerks, also known as copyists, scribes, and scriveners. A few alternatives to hand copying were invented between the mid-17th century and the late 18th century, but none had a significant impact in offices. In 1780 James Watt obtained a patent"
"Telescreen Telescreens are devices that operate as both televisions, security cameras and microphones. They are featured in George Orwell's dystopian novel ""Nineteen Eighty-Four"" as well as all film adaptations of the novel. In the novel and its adaptations, telescreens are used by the ruling Party in the totalitarian fictional State of Oceania to keep its subjects under constant surveillance, thus eliminating the chance of secret conspiracies against Oceania. All members of the Inner Party (""nomenklatura"") and Outer Party (middle-class) have telescreens in their homes, but the proles (lower-class) are not typically monitored as they are unimportant to the Party. As"
"appears in Robert A. Heinlein's ""Space Cadet"", written at the same time as Orwell's book, where it simply refers to an instrument similar to a large television, but with none of Orwell's sinister connotations. Telescreen Telescreens are devices that operate as both televisions, security cameras and microphones. They are featured in George Orwell's dystopian novel ""Nineteen Eighty-Four"" as well as all film adaptations of the novel. In the novel and its adaptations, telescreens are used by the ruling Party in the totalitarian fictional State of Oceania to keep its subjects under constant surveillance, thus eliminating the chance of secret conspiracies"
"Doublespeak Doublespeak is language that deliberately obscures, disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words. Doublespeak may take the form of euphemisms (e.g. ""downsizing"" for layoffs, ""servicing the target"" for bombing), in which case it is primarily meant to make the truth sound more palatable. It may also refer to intentional ambiguity in language or to actual inversions of meaning. In such cases, doublespeak disguises the nature of the truth. Doublespeak is most closely associated with political language. The term ""doublespeak"" originates in George Orwell's book ""Nineteen Eighty-Four"". Although the term is not used in the book, it is a"
"destroying his files. She turned over twelve boxes of the ""Official/Confidential"" files to Felt on May 4, 1972. This consisted of 167 files and 17,750 pages, many of them containing derogatory information about individuals whom Hoover had investigated. He used his information as power over them. Felt stored the files in his office. The existence of such files had long been rumored. Gray told the press that afternoon that ""there are no dossiers or secret files. There are just general files and I took steps to preserve their integrity."" Felt earlier that day had told Gray, ""Mr. Gray, the Bureau"
"letters to suppress files, websites, and even numbers. Instead of being suppressed, the information receives extensive publicity and media extensions such as videos and spoof songs, often being widely mirrored on the Internet or distributed on file-sharing networks. Mike Masnick of Techdirt coined the term in 2005 in relation to a holiday resort issuing a takedown notice to urinal.net (a site dedicated to photographs of urinals) over use of the resort's name. The term alluded to Barbra Streisand, who had sued photographer Kenneth Adelman and Pictopia.com for violation of privacy. The US$50 million lawsuit endeavored to remove an aerial photograph"
"Thought Police In the novel ""Nineteen Eighty-Four"" (1949), by George Orwell, the Thought Police (""Thinkpol"") are the secret police of the superstate Oceania, who discover and punish ""thoughtcrime"", personal and political thoughts unapproved by the Party. The Thinkpol use criminal psychology and omnipresent surveillance (telescreens, microphones, informers) to search for and find, monitor and arrest all citizens of Oceania who would commit ""thoughtcrime"" in challenge to the ""status quo"" authority of the Party and the regime of Big Brother. George Orwell's concept of ""thought policing"" derived from the intellectual self-honesty shown by a person's ""power of facing unpleasant facts""; thus,"
"allowing historians to perform their responsibilities. In 1972, decades worth of official and unofficial Federal Bureau of Investigation records had been destroyed, upon the death of J. Edgar Hoover, by his longtime secretary, Helen Gandy. The Presidential Records Act of 1978 expanded such protection of historical records, by mandating that the records of former presidents would automatically become the property of the federal government upon their departures from the Oval Office, and then transferred to the Archivist of the United States, thereafter to be made available to the public after no more than 12 years. Thus, the presidential papers of"
"from the membership of the House Administration Committee. United States House Committee on the Disposition of Executive Papers The United States House Committee on the Disposition of Executive Papers is a former standing committee of the United States House of Representatives. The committee was established on February 16, 1889, by ""An Act to authorize and provide for the disposition of useless papers in the Executive Departments."" The act provided that whenever an executive department accumulated files of papers that were not needed for the transaction of current business and possessed no permanent value or historical interest, the head of the"