No matter how hard the governments try to hide the fact that they’re monitoring billions of people each second, the harsh reality of things always becomes visible. Many people are still in the dark in regards to being aware that their activities are being tracked. On the other hand, there are a lot of ’whistleblowers’ these days, who try to unveil just how dangerous and detrimental these government acts are and can be.
Our privacy and freedom of movement are seriously jeopardized. The dystopian scenarios of Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World are slowly but surely becoming the reality of things. What poststructuralist philosophers and writers like Michel Foucault, for instance, noticed and wrote about in the 1960s and 1970s was just the first step towards trying to establish full control over, essentially, each and every person.
It’s Paramount That We Do Something About This
We should face this reality, but we also need to raise our voice against these power structures. The internet has become one of the most important places that we need to protect since most of the surveillance is done through WWW. These are some ideas on how to try to protect our privacy and freedom while we’re online.
Opt for Reliable VPN Services
As our title reads clearly: a virtual private network (VPN) is the first line of defense against government surveillance and probably the best way you can protect your activities online.
This virtual private network is specifically designed to encrypt traffic between your computer, smartphone, or tablet and all those websites and services that you can access online.
VPN Helps You Manage Your Data
It’s important to note that data management is at the heart of privacy. There are different data, of course, and can include a wide range of information. There’s personally identifiable information like your name, home address, e-mail address, phone numbers, your date of birth, marital status, social security number, and so on.
If all this information is online, it means that anyone can use them to conduct identity theft or take out loans using your name, for example.
Isn’t the Government Trying to Protect Me Actually?
The governments are obviously not going to do these things that the more regular cybercriminals do, but they can know exactly who you’re talking to and when, which websites are you visiting, and so on.
Because they have your personal information and know that it is actually you that’s browsing the internet or chatting with someone, they know the things that you might not want anyone to know.
And it’s not about illegal activities also – the governments try to justify their spying programs by saying that they’re only trying to protect everyone. But this shouldn’t need to involve tracking everyone, just those who’re suspicious enough of something.
VPN Hides Your IP Address and Location
Again, the best way you can protect yourself against these surveillance activities is to opt for reliable VPN services that are going to create a secure tunnel and lead you safely through the internet. The encryption of data packages is ensured before they are even sent to the destination server. This is how both your IP address and location become hidden, which explains exactly how personally identifiable information becomes unavailable to governments and cybercriminals.
What If there’s a Sudden Drop In Connection?
You may wonder what would happen if there’s a sudden drop in connection and would you still be secure in such a scenario. Some VPNs offer a solution to this problem by including a so-called ’kill switch’ that interrupts/aborts your internet connection temporarily. This gives you the ability to continue your online activities while remaining fully protected.
Other Things You Can Do to Better Protect Yourself
It should be clear by now that a good VPN provider needs to be your first line of defense against government surveillance, but are there some other things that you can do to further protect your privacy?
Encrypted Chat Apps
In recent years, various government agencies are starting to develop different strategies to monitor mobile communications as well. More and more people are using instant messaging apps, which results in increased efforts to control these chat apps.
One way to prevent your person-to-person communications from becoming available to government agencies and surveillance programs is to choose encrypted instant messaging apps. The SMS text messaging is rather insecure, so you should definitely give encrypted chat apps a go.
Try to Hide Your Location Physically
Maybe you’re not too worried about the fact that the government can scroll through your messages or e-mails, but what about your physical location? The GPS system that’s built into your phone can serve these purposes – anyone who has access to the satellites and cell towers can know your exact whereabouts.
We’ve seen that hiding your location when you’re using the internet is easy: a VPN takes care of that easily. But what about your physical security? Well, that’s a much tougher nut to crack and probably something that we’re going to have to continue to work on in the future.
Naturally, it’s possible to disable your phone’s GPS, but still remains the problem of cell tower triangulation that can be used to calculate your location.
A Word to the Wise: Be Cautious and Alert to the Dangers of Government Surveillance
We’ve already indicated at the beginning of the article that many people are still unaware that the government tracks and monitors our every move essentially. But even some of those who are informed about these activities are not particularly concerned since they have ’nothing to hide’. What they don’t realize is that it’s not about doing something illegal – it’s about protecting the right to our privacy and freedom.
Because we spend so much time online, it’s crucial that we don’t let anyone interfere with our freedom from disturbance. We should fight however we can to protect the state or condition of being free from being observed or disturbed by other people – including government agencies.
