“Ultimately, arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.”
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This page is designed to be a launching pad for other articles that I’ve written on privacy. I invite you to read them in order.
- My Journey into Recovering My Digital Privacy
- Increasing privacy on my computer by switching from Windows to Linux
- A Smartphone with Neither Google nor Apple (coming someday)
Since the COVID pandemic in 2020, many of us started asking difficult questions about the powerful leaders whom we previously trusted. Whether in government, technology, healthcare, or the corporate world, we witnessed totalitarianism unleashed upon the world’s population in astonishing ways. There have been many defenders of these post-COVID changes. “After all,” they would say, “we’re just trying to keep you safe.”
In truth, the changes during the COVID pandemic were more of an unmasking than anything else. The Patriot Act of 2001 legalized the government spying on its own citizens. Since then, it has been collecting huge swaths of data and keeping it indefinitely. Ten years later, the US government passed a bill that allows the government to arrest and detain citizens indefinitely, without any charges or hope for a trial (this is called kidnapping, by the way).
Why does this concern me? As an Orthodox Christian who enjoys studying history, I know that totalitarian governments eventually come for the church. They may not shut it down, but they tightly control it. If Christians step out of line with the government’s narrative, they find themselves in prison, a gulag, a concentration camp, or being executed. With the above mentioned laws in the US, it would be both easy and legal for the government to collect data about its citizens, figure out who is unhappy with the regime in power, and then remove those “pesky” people from society without any trial. While there has been no open persecution of Christians in the US, everything is in place that would enable an exceedingly corrupt government to quickly make its moves.
By protecting our communications and privacy, we can at least decrease the amount of data that the government keeps on us. Without moving into a cave and living off the land, we’ll never be able to eliminate some level of surveillance, but we can reduce it. Hopefully, my articles above will help you understand why this is important and what you can do about it.
Lastly, I don’t want people to live in fear and paranoia. If going down this privacy rabbit hole causes massive anxiety for you, then you may need to stop. We must trust God that He loves us, will strengthen us during hardships, and will save us if we endure to the end.
In the video below, Tulsi Gabbard mentions some of the government surveillance that is occurring now. By posting this video, I am not at all endorsing Mr. Trump for President. I am simply trying to raise awareness of the abuse of power that is happening (and has been happening for multiple presidential terms).