A Few Hints on Privacy

It is commonplace that in the last decade or so privacy has gotten harder to obtain or preserve for most of us. There are many well known reasons for this. The apparent increase  in surveillance and spying on ordinary Americans by the government since 2001 is the most obvious one, but we also have hacking against and theft from networks and databases of all sorts, the tracking and monitoring of people’s activity and even physical movements by providers of network and mobile phone services, the widespread use of surveillance cameras by both governments and private organizations, the general lessening of respect for civil rights in the name of homeland security, and various other factors.

I think this trend is already dangerous and has the potential to become far more so. I also think people who care about their rights and liberty should do what they can to resist it and protect themselves , both for their own good and the good of the country.

I can think of a few obvious things to do. While there may be safe and secure networks and devices connected to them (though on the evidence that is not the way to bet), a person has no way of knowing if the venders and  services he is using provide them.  So he should keep and view the detailed spreadsheet of his  assets and investments, the indiscrete photos and videos of him and his spouse, the inventory of his firearms and ammunition,  the compendia of rude jokes about members of currently favored racial or other groups, his written musings on his unpleasant in-laws or worthless son-in-law, journals detailing his private, unpopular political activities and beliefs,  notes on the abilities and character of his co-workers and bosses, and other things he does not want to share with either the general public or nosey civil servants on devices which are never connected to any network.  This obviously precludes backing up sensitive data  with any of the commercial external backup services. A person has no way of knowing how secure a company’s servers  and encryption are or what potential snoopers have what sort of access through mandated back doors.

People who watch detective shows  or the local news know telecom companies keep records of phone calls, and government agencies can get them.  At least some bureaucrats  also seem to be empowered to listen in on the content of phone calls  with far less oversight or requirement to show cause  than people once thought.  Records of emails and other activity on the internet seem to be even less protected and more open to  government snooping than phone calls. They are also vulnerable to hackers.  So people should be cautious about what they say and what they type, and all the more so on office computers and other devices they do not control. In particular so-called social media sites are actual or potential wide open windows for Peeping Toms from coast to coast and should be used carefully if at all.

Since records of transactions using credit or debit cards are  apparently secure from neither officials nor hackers,  I would suggest the radical step of going back to old, anonymous cash for as many of a person’s transactions as can be done conveniently.  Using cash has other benefits too. A person can’t spend more of it than he has for one thing.  Some things such as ammunition and really unpopular anti-government publications probably should be bought only with cash, irrespective of any inconvenience.

I also think people should join  the political struggle to regain citizens’ lost privacy, forming coalitions with people who share that goal, irrespective of their other political opinions.  However benign one may think our present officials are, there is always the chance the next bunch or the one after that may have other ideas and goals.