Jimmy Carter: "I believe if I send an email, it will be monitored"
When even a former American President is worried that his emails are being monitored by our federal government, you know we have lost the 4th Amendment of our Constitution:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
As a Republican, I often find myself at odds with others in my party when it comes to protecting the 4th Amendment. Many say, "If aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear." But this misses the point.
You don't have to be doing anything illegal to fear what unlimited government might do with access to all of your data. With 1960s technology, the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover tapped the phones of Martin Luther King, uncovered an affair and attempted to blackmail him with this information to stifle his political dissent.
Today, the NSA has full access to the data on our phones and computers, including information on our text messages, phone calls and website browsing history. Knowing that our federal government has abuses information like this in the past without any repercussion, how might this stifle political dissent in modern times?
Perhaps you have done nothing illegal, but maybe you visit websites or engage in private activities that might be embarrassing if ever exposed. Might you think twice about speaking out against our government, knowing they have access to this information?
This is simply one reason why we must defend the 4th Amendment.
Excerpt from Business Insider:
"When I want to communicate with a foreign leader privately, I type or write a letter myself, put it in the post office, and mail it," Carter said with a laugh, as he was questioned on the matter on NBC's "Meet the Press" program. "I have felt that my own communications are probably monitored," he said on the Sunday show.
Full Article: http://www.businessinsider.com/former-us-president-carter-uses-snail-mail-to-evade-the-nsa-2014-3
Completely agree.
Whats also disturbing is when the government tries to force companies to give them backdoors into their security systems and then doesnt disclose to those same companies of a security flaw allowing them access.
Agreed.
I have moved away from any email service that does not encrypt my messages that get stored on their server and give me the option to encrypt the message in transit. It can be a bit of a hassle to make the person who get the message to put in a password to see what I wrote but if it's important enough, like my SSN or something than it's worth the added protection.
My favorite service is Tutanota, it's free and open-source and does all that I mentioned above.
Good advice.
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The disturbing thing is the idea that fine, normal, decent things are considered illegal, and thus we have to feel guilt, or hide like scared rabbits, for doing things that should be legal in the first place.
Legal/illegal are concepts that should not exist in a free society. There is only one concept that I respect, and that is freedom.
Freedom is not granted to you by a smiling, kind politician who makes lovely promises.
Freedom must be demanded from politicians and people around us who try to tell us how to live. We see their true form when a person tries to usurp freedom by telling us that their morals are the true morals, and everyone else just has to obey.
They are monsters who wear human skin.
We should not have to ask permission, or play a game where one human is able to tell others what to do, nor should even 99% of humans be able to force their views onto a 1% minority.
Each human should be free to live their own life, without such absurd meddling by others. This is the natural order of life on Earth, and anything else is an aberration of sanity.
Free humans should not be spied on by each other. People who spy on others, such as the NSA, are unethical, and they should be stopped. But who will stop them? In a society of unjust law, and unjust spying, the combination of these two concepts are the beginnings of a religious cult.
Infinite knowledge and infinite power over other humans is the reason people invent religions with panopticon gods, isn't it? We mustn't be naive as to what these people are building using advanced computer technology.
It must be stopped.
Privacy and anonymity should be the default.
Security and happiness should be the default.
Freedom should be the default.