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Keeping Your Data Private From the NSA (And Everyone Else)
Nerval's Lobster writes "If those newspaper reports are accurate, the NSA's surveillance programs are enormous and sophisticated, and rely on the latest in analytics software. In the face of that, is there any way to keep your communications truly private? Or should you resign yourself to saying or typing, 'Hi, NSA!' every time you make a phone call or send an email? Fortunately there are ways to gain a measure of security: HTTPS, Tor, SCP, SFTP, and the vendors who build software on top of those protocols. But those host-proof solutions offer security in exchange for some measure of inconvenience. If you lose your access credentials, you're likely toast: few highly secure services include a 'Forgot Your Password?' link, which can be easily engineered to reset a password and username without the account owner's knowledge. And while 'big' providers like Google provide some degree of encryption, they may give up user data in response to a court order. Also, all the privacy software in the world also can't prevent the NSA (or other entities) from capturing metadata and other information. What do you think is the best way to keep your data locked down? Or do you think it's all a lost cause?"
Only way you can keep your data yours while sitting at rest is to have it on your own servers and utilize proper encryption and security on those servers. That means don't use "cloud" anything unless it's on equipment you own, run your own email servers, etc. Remember that even doing this, emails that you send to other people can be accessed through whatever servers they use.
+++ATH0 NO CARRIER
1. Use an email provider nobody's heard about.
2. Keep social network data private, more importantly don't post anything sensitive.
3. Don't engage in terrorism, they really hate that.
4. Somewhere between "get off Windows" and use a live disk, I don't think any OS is truly secure.
5. Don't save anything locally, keep your accounts hidden, no email notifications.
Wave at the black SUV outside your window as not having any traceable data may warrant suspicion in itself.
Move to SA (either one).
Actually, privacy isn't mentioned in the Bill of Rights at all. It has been inferred though not explicitly mentioned.
Is not their problem if you feel that you don't have anything to hide. You could be committing 3 felonies a day without being aware of it. Anything that you did in your past could be used against you, even if not a matter of national security, or against some friend to frame you if they think you did something wrong. And could be in your side to prove that you are innocent, something that could be costly if even possible.
And not forget that the **AA are in bed with them, the wrong you did could be having a background music in the video you took in a birthday party or that silly theme that you were singing with your friends when drunk.
Don't think just in the present, and your precarious today's safety, Things will change. And for worse.
According to wikipedia, in 2001 a total of 3547 people died in terrorist attacks. Worst year on record.
According to wikipedia, in 2001 in the US 42,196 people died in traffic accidents.
According to Wikipedia in 2001 (A crappy graph) approximately 8000 people were killed with handguns in the US.
Someone tell me why the threat of terrorism gets so much attention.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
The 4th's ban ban on general warrants (that's what it means when it mentions "warrants" in its historical context) strongly implies a privacy right. General warrants were authorization from the crown for its agents to search any person or premises they desired to, blanket authorization. The 4th amendment bans that. The government has to have specific cause, evidence already at hand related to a specific person or premise, to search at all.
That the government in general has no right to search means by very strong implication that you have the right to the privacy which results. What else is it but your privacy that the 4th amendment says the government can't intrude on? It's nonsense not to find a right to privacy as a necessary implication of our constitutional protection from general warrants.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Most people aren't concerned about the NSA looking at them right now. They're concerned about how this data may be used in the future should they suddenly find themselves with an administration which has a problem with their views on issue X and now has the means to identify all the people who have those particular views on issue X.