Dang.
As a long time reader of LewRockwell.com, I was pleasantly surprised to find a trackback from my last post to the LRC blog today. Somebody over there has come across my humble little outpost here on the fringes of teh interwebz....and included a link in his post, Extremely Serious Privacy Problem in America.
Than I read what he had to say about my piece:
"Here is a libertarian who recognizes the end of privacy and sees it as a foregone conclusion. His pessimism is total. He offers no defense of privacy at all." - Micheal S. Rozeff, The LRC Blog
Is it pessimism to point out the truth?
The loss of our privacy from the Surveillance State's intrusions IS a forgone conclusion.
Has been since October 26, 2001, when the PATRIOT act was signed into law.
If you have healthcare insurance, you already have no privacy here in the Land of the Fee and Home of the Tax and Credit-Debt Slaves.
What defense can I, an anonymous blogger on teh interwebz, offer for this now obsolete concept of privacy?
I merely belabor to point out the truth, because from where I'm sitting, it seems to me that 90% of the people in this Country are oblivious to this ongoing destruction of what used to be a Constitutionally recognized right to privacy.
Most people go along with it, without a second thought.
Worse still, most people are too absorbed and preoccupied with the 21st centuries version of bread and circuses entertainment to care.
And when they aren't staring at the Tell-A-Vision, breathlessly awaiting which contestant is going to win on The Voice, or which ball team is going to make it to the playoffs (hey, I'm not judging anyone, I do it too), most are too busy to notice. We all have more important things to do with out time, like staring at our palms at one of the biggest catalysts in this ongoing loss of our privacy - the Mobile Affirmation Devices, which also certainly serve as Personal Information Harvesting Devices for our Corporate Data Plan Providers.
Offering a defense for Privacy? We're long past that point. Privacy WAS an 19th to 20th century concept, now obsolete. Welcome to the 21st century!
What's left to defend? Total Information Awareness is already here.
To paraphrase something I wrote on a different topic previously:
There is no candidate running for office that you can vote for to defend privacy.
There is no political party you can join, no "tea party" or "Occupy" rally you can attend or no organization or cause that you can donate your money to that is going to make a damn bit of difference in our current state of affairs.
There is no possibility of working within our current system to "fix" what's wrong.
That's because there's nothing to fix.
From the view of those who have implemented the system and constructed our current situation, this shit is going off exactly as planned.
There is only one thing left to do for those of us who still care about obsolete concepts like freedom, privacy, and a non-intrusive Government.
Refuse and Resist, wherever we can, whenever we can..
How?
In small ways. Engage in subterfuge. A personal mis-info and dis-info guerilla campaign.
Examples?
* When your at a check out at one of the box store Corporate retail outlets in your area, and they ask you for your name and phone number, give the checkout person deliberately false info. That's not against the law. Yet.
* Never say anything into a cell phone, nor text anything, nor blog, vlog, post, email, write, tweet, instagram or comment anything that you wouldn't be comfortable with having total strangers read, see or hear....because all forms of electronic communications ARE stored and can and will be used against you should the need for authorities to do so, arise.
* If at all possible, use cash for your purchases. Try and stick to stores and farmer's markets where a "club" card is not required, for as many purchases as you possibly can. If you must, try and use other people's club cards and pay with cash. I have the club cards from several deceased friends and family that I use whenever I shop at such stores.
* If you find it necessary to have a smart phone or some other mobile data device, figure out how to disable GPS applications. And if for whatever reason you ever find yourself being pursued by the authorities for any reason whatsoever, don't forget to shut off your "smart" phone. Hell, just to be certain, remove the battery. If your situation is really serious, than leave it on and ditch it hidden on a bus or another vehicle heading somewhere far away.
* Don't buy any new vehicles with the OnStar or other perpetual tracking devices built into it.
* If you MUST have a social media profile, fill it full of false or ambiguous information...especially use a fake name. If you insist on posting pictures to your social media pages, don't use pictures taken with your smart phones, as they are now designed to automatically include hidden data embedded in the pics and vids themselves, revealing the time, location and other personal details of where and when that photo was taken.
* If you really want to get off grid, only blog or update your social media pages or check your web based email on public computers and internet cafe's and other such places.
* Another strategy would be to have a wireless laptop or other device that does not have your personal info stored in it at all, and use it only at free Wi-Fi hotspots.
* Whenever you're doing an online search, use only the search engines and proxy server sites that provide anonymity. Search engines like DuckDuckGo and StartPage.com.
* Don't buy appliances that have internet connection features built in.
* Minimize your use of Debt Enslavement Cartel member establishments...aka Banks. Don't use debit cards or credit cards as much as possible.
These are all ideas I myself practice as much as possible. Does this make me paranoid? All of these things I now do, come from the inspiration of a guy in the UK back in 2010 who decided to see if he could elude the surveillance State just as an experiment.
“A lot of people are giving information away voluntarily,” says Gowlett. “Look how many young children are giving up their whole lives on Facebook and Twitter – everything, their date of birth, the names of relatives and friends, where they live, when they’re going on holiday and what their political views are.
“People should think carefully how data is going to be used. Some are careful enough to opt out of the electoral roll, but when they have a baby and a nappy company comes round they give every piece of information they’re asked for. And that will be used to tie up with other databases.” Databases such as Tesco’s, which holds information on virtually every adult in the country, regardless of where they shop.
The National Health Service is unrolling a multibillion-pound IT project that will upload millions of patients’ medical records on to a database, freely accessed by 250,000 NHS staff and, to a lesser degree, by private health companies, council workers, commercial researchers and ambulance staff. Letters are going out now, strongly urging us all to allow this and making it as hard as possible to opt out.
The detectives are appalled. “That will have all your medical history on it, your date of birth and everything that has happened to you,” says Gowlett. “It’s vulnerable, and people will be able to get all that information on you in one go.”
Every product or service you buy from a large, national Corporation (like Tesco's in the UK) has personal info about you on file. You may have no need to ever worry that such info could ever be used against you. I don't care to take that chance.
Does that make me paranoid?
I don't think so. I like to think it just makes me aware of how much I value my personal privacy. Shouldn't I not be concerned about all this or go through all this unnecessary hassles if I have nothing to hide?
As far as I'm concerned, that's nobody's business to decide but mine.
You value your privacy? Then guard it, because the State is certainly coming for it whether you like it or not.
