Steph’s Blog ∙ Info

The surveillance should include all Internet traffic, Mueller said, “whether it be .mil, .gov, .com–whichever network you’re talking about.”

Bold emphasis in the above quote was added by me.

Sounds delicious, doesn’t it? You can read more about it here: FBI wants widespread monitoring of ‘illegal’ Internet activity

What exactly is “illegal”?

Maybe you’re simply venting to a friend in chat when you say, “The president should go choke on a pretzel, and maybe next time someone should help the pretzel!” Uh oh, you went and threatened the life of the president! You poor sod. That’s a secret service visit for you. Never mind the fact that you were merely venting in an instant message conversation with a friend when you said it.

I wonder when people are going to realize what’s happening? Or, rather, I seriously question if they give a damn at all. Maybe they just think, “It’s not MY problem, so I won’t worry about it!” Maybe they just think that their personal emails are so boring that the FBI or NSA simply wouldn’t care to begin with.

What nonsense. Do you really want random strangers reading your IMs, emails, and watching the sites that you visit? So that stuff’s no big deal then… unless the funny picture that you just viewed is showing something that’s technically illegal in your state. That’ll be a $500 fine, thank you very much!

Yeah that’s stretching it thin, but seriously. There comes a point when I say, “You know what? They’re getting what they deserve”. If people just want to sit around on their butts and do nothing about what’s happening, then they’ve worked very hard indeed at earning the loss of their privacy. Cynical? Yeah, you bet’cha I’m getting that way.

You want my philosophy about it? The more that they push, the more that we should push back. You don’t have to be a criminal to demand respect and your basic rights.

• Get a VPN and have all of your traffic encrypted, not just your web browsing. There’s a lot more to cover than just the fact that you hit your favorite website every day.
VPN services cost a yearly or monthly subscription. I use WiTopia.net because it’s wonderfully inexpensive and really fast, but there are probably better (and more expensive) services that you should peruse first.
• Another area of privacy concern should be your IM chats. Do you really think that a group as intrusive as the FBI wouldn’t be monitoring your chats?
Unfortunately a proxy or even a VPN won’t completely secure your conversations. Get OTR encryption for Pidgin & Adium, or at least have SecureIM enabled in Trillian.

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