Welcome to the Resistance
It's time to step all the way out of denial. Perhaps not to admit total defeat, but to acknowledge that the forces of darkness have won every round and are likely to continue to do so. And to operate in clear-eyed acceptance of the new realities.When you recognize that Congress passed a law in direct contravention of the Fourth Amendment allowing government agencies and even private companies to eavesdrop on your personal communications without warrant or court order and at the same time you realize that the government has asserted the right to examine everything in your computer and storage devices without even any "individual suspicion", well you better stop pretending you're still in Kansas.
Instead, think in terms of East Germany or Soviet Russia circa 1980.
But wait, you say. I'm just another guy, a working stiff, trying to raise my family, make a living, just live my life. I'm in no way working against the American government.
Ok, sure. But here's the problem. The rules have fundamentally changed. They used to tell you what you couldn't do. Laws had to very clearly inform you what was illegal, and the proscribed punishment for each infraction. It was realtively simple to educate yourself and stay on the right side of the law. As long as you did, you typically had no problems. And you could accept the premise that "ignorance of the law is no excuse" because, frankly, it was pretty easy to NOT be ignorant of the law.
But today, they don't need a law. They don't need to tell you what you did. In fact, they specifically say they don't even need to suspect that you did anything at all. Any reason, any moment, any comment or bad day at home or something you wrote or said or did. Anything. They can take your laptop. They can go through your data. Oh, and don't forget. They can detain you without charges indefinitely if they choose to.
So you don't have to be part of any revolution. Just to try to live your life in these times, you are part of the Resistance. You must think in those terms. You must take steps to protect yourself, your family, your friends and your company from the most intrusive authoritarian surveillance state outside of the Peoples Republic of China.
But there is some good news. Once again, it is technology that helps somewhat level the playing field. In an upcoming series, I will examine the various available solutions to your personal data and lifestyle security. In the short term, take these actions immediately:
1. Get a Box.net account. It's not expensive, get as much storage as you need. The idea is to have NO data on your laptop when you travel.
2. Get the largest capacity USB Flash Drive you can afford. Download and install TrueCrypt encryption software.
3. If you travel often, or if you can afford it, consider getting a second laptop just for traveling. Because it will not actually contain any data, merely an OS and applications, it does not have to be expensive or powerful. Check into some of the inexpensive Ubuntu machines available these days.
4. Start using Google Docs. All you need to open an account is an email address. Consider setting one up just for that purpose - preferably one that can't be traced back to you or your computers. Google does the storage, the applications run in the browser, it's truly a zero-footprint solution. And when you delete your surfing history, no one would have any way of knowing about your Google Docs (or, for that matter, your Box.net) account. It's worth remembering that if they do find out, your friendly government agency can likely get Google to turn over your documents, certainly with a court order, so consider what you choose to store there.
Look. We were all raised in the "Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave". It can be very hard to get your mind around the new normal. But everything has changed. You can rail against it, fight against it, agitate against it and work against it. But in the meantime don't forget to recognize that it is real, it is in place, and it has you in it's sights.
posted by mikey @ 11:56 AM
6 Comments:
Excellent post and tips Mikey. Thanks much! FWIW I also enjoy your posts very much on S,N! but you will probably notice I no longer post much there. I'm afraid I ran into the propeller blades of Lesley one time too many and decided it wasn't worth it. I did see your dust-up with her and believe me I agree with everything you had to say and more.
All the best,
celticgirl
Hey mikey, I will take your post off-topic!
Remember when we were haggling about nuclear power? I think you should give geo-thermal another try. The technology is there already, there are a lot of improvements (most notably regarding the ability to drill and the use of low boiling-point fluids) that could possibly put nuclear power to shame.
It's not that I am "Pro Nuclear" necessarily, Bubba. It's that I believe that there is no bigger threat to the planet than Global Climate Change and to quit burning fossil fuel is an existential emergency. If we can quickly move off coal, NatGas and Oil, I'd be the first to support a non-nuclear option.
But this is an emergency. It takes years to get the new alternatives on stream. We know how to do nuclear now, just as we understand the downsides to it. But if we were to decide we needed to build a certain amount of nuclear generation capacity in five years, that would be five years lost.
i just want to see a sense of urgency, some movement as opposed to talk...
mikey
I think I understand your nuclear stand and really I'm awful close to it, however geothermal energy is sort of the forgotten technology; there have been geothermal plants in operation for slightly under a century. So we know how to deal with the old technology regarding this now - which is locale-limited of course - and newer drilling technology means that anybody on Earth can have a power plant in their back yard, which sounds stupid but from an engineering perspective is wholly possible provided the neighbours don't mind giant drilling derricks sprawling across their views.
Building a nuclear plant takes a while both technologically and in the face of determined opposition, and a little birdie tells me that worldwide geothermal generation is going to get a big push in a few weeks. I am honestly optimistic and it is, in some measure, movement from a sense of urgency.
NPR had a piece yesterday on green building strategies, and they had this guy in Oakland who had done a BUNCH of stuff at his house, from solar-electric to solar-thermal to wind and state-of-the-art insulation strategies.
He had drilled two very deep wells in his front yard to bring at least geo-thermal heating if not generation on stream. And it was a very expensive failure.
They didn't say why, whether there was just no heat down there or whether there was no good way to use it, but if they can get it figured out it would be a great option.
MIT made a pretty big announcement around getting Hydrogen from Solar yesterday. Doesn't solve the Platinum Problem, but it's another step in the right direction...
On the other hand a lot of office buildings right now are using gravity fed heat-pumps right now for heating and cooling.
I used to despise the big pools that were in front of office buildings, thinking they were getting in the way of gathering space for people, but it seems that many of those pools have coils running through 'em that, nearly energy-free, replace power-consuming heating/cooling systems. That's not power generation, but it's something happening right now that results in energy efficiency.
The drilling I'm talking about with regard to power generation is the current ability to drill kilometers down, meaning you can have geothermal power in far more places than currently dreamed. It seems to me that this requires a whole bunch of specialists, engineers and grunts to make something like that go, so the guy who failed might have been over-optimistic that he could achieve something hard. Sure wish he'd succeeded though.
Post a Comment
<< Home