Government Snooping, the NSA, and Tom Udall

It was recently announced that Google has purchased the Israeli company SlickLogin, a consumer password manager.  With the NSA (National Security Agency) hacked into every single internet and search provider, including Google, is anything still safe?  Add to this the fact that a virtually unknown government agency (Consumer Finance Protection Bureau) now sees fit to hack into everyone's credit card usage and you can see how unsafe all of this has become.  If Google hopes to use their new purchase, SlickLogin, how can they ensure that the NSA won't be sniffing and gathering that data? I doubt that they can.  This was a bad purchase by Google and a poor use of stockholder equity.

The amount of government snooping into the affairs of ordinary citizens has surpassed even George Orwell's dreams.  That being said, what if anything can you do?

Well, for the most part, the government isn't interested in you.  The fact that they gather up all of your emails, your telephone metadata, and your credit card information, is disgusting but most likely not likely to cause you problems unless that data itself is hacked.  In other words, if the government safeguards their data, it is unlikely to affect you.  

Well, the so-called consumer watchdog agency cannot, according to their congressional testimony, say that their data is any safer than Target's (see link).  That is a concern and we need to shut them down from this practice but you are still pretty safe.  It would be almost comical if the CFPB (Consumer Finance Protection Bureau) got hacked.  That would accomplish ending their ridiculous practices even faster than new law.

What can you do to protect yourself?  Unless you are channeling Bin Laden's ghost in your emails, there is little you need to worry about.  Even if you were, you are likely free from drone strikes as long as you don't go out of the country (while I am joking, think about it).  If you need to secure your emails, there is software that will do it and Google has taken to using https to secure search and email.  This doesn't mean that the government can't hack it, only that the process is more difficult.  You could encrypt your emails, there are services that do that using PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) but according to Edward Snowden's leaks (see link), PGP was hacked by the NSA years ago.  You could turn your entire email into random word groups using a random number generator but the recipient would need to know how to decrypt it.  Not only that, an email with random letter word groups would probably invite government hacking.  Seriously, it is best that you not entrust security-sensitive data to email.

Don't search anything about bomb-making unless you want to get the government looking at you.  Don't get on any terrorist or radical Muslim websites.  Don't even search for them unless you like the FBI sniffing around asking questions.  

Finally, take an interest in the politics around you.  Democrat or Republican, you should be outraged and alarmed at the current state of affairs with this President.  And if you are loathe to blame Obama, recall that the Patriot Act was initially authorized by George Bush.  It was a Republican bad law that was handed to a new Democratic president.  Imagine what would have happened if Nixon had had the Patriot Act, Guantanamo, and the FISA courts?  This is not a partisan issue.  It is bad law and few of our senators or representatives have the personal courage to address it.

Here is how Tom Udall figures in.  Granted Mr. Udall sent a letter to the New York Times deploring the NSA excesses.  He has not, however, introduced any legislation to stop or alter the practices.  It is even more damning that he voted for and promoted his vote on Dodd-Frank, the bill that created the CFPB.  He has not even taken a stand on the CFPB's data gathering of 91 million credit cards (see link).

If you are afraid to voice your opinion because you are too lazy, shame on you.  If you are afraid to voice your opinion because of your job, see the first question;  your boss or firm are prevented by law from discriminating against your political activities.  If you disagree with me, okay.  You are wrong but I respect that.