The Liberty Lamp: Libertarian News & Editorials

Privacy and civil liberties are rapidly slipping a way for a number of real and imagined reasons, but Joe Sixpack isn't doing much about it, though he's apparently concerned about it in an unclear, abstract kind of way. MSNBC has an article about this phenomenon (see title link). Below is an excerpt:

Someday a stranger will read your e-mail, rummage through your instant messages without your permission or scan the Web sites you’ve visited — maybe even find out that you read this story.

You might be spied in a lingerie store by a secret camera or traced using a computer chip in your car, your clothes or your skin.

Perhaps someone will casually glance through your credit card purchases or cell phone bills, or a political consultant might select you for special attention based on personal data purchased from a vendor.
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In fact, it’s likely some of these things have already happened to you.

Who would watch you without your permission? It might be a spouse, a girlfriend, a marketing company, a boss, a cop or a criminal. Whoever it is, they will see you in a way you never intended to be seen — the 21st century equivalent of being caught naked.

Psychologists tell us boundaries are healthy, that it’s important to reveal yourself to friends, family and lovers in stages, at appropriate times. But few boundaries remain. The digital bread crumbs you leave everywhere make it easy for strangers to reconstruct who you are, where you are and what you like. In some cases, a simple Google search can reveal what you think. Like it or not, increasingly we live in a world where you simply cannot keep a secret.

The key question is: Does that matter?

For many Americans, the answer apparently is “no.”

When pollsters ask Americans about privacy, most say they are concerned about losing it. An MSNBC.com survey, which will be covered in detail on Tuesday, found an overwhelming pessimism about privacy, with 60 percent of respondents saying they feel their privacy is “slipping away, and that bothers me.”


How can you protect yourself? A good start is simply to search for items using the term "privacy" in any search engine. A good resource is the one and only Asset Protection Crash Course. This site provides a wealth of actionable information about privacy and asset protection dangers and solutions in a straightforward, easy to read FAQ format.

YOU ARE BEING WATCHED.