There’s been a lot of talk in the last several months about the NSA spying on American Citizens.

While this is actually nothing new, the revelations of Eric Snowden really brought the reality of how extensively our own government is spying on us home to roost.

People are outraged, scared, nervous, sickened and worried all that the same time. As we still don’t really know the extent of the NSA’s spying operations, we don’t’ know how much danger they have put us all in.

While there is plenty of reason to be concerned about the NSA’s spying operations, they aren’t the only one spying on us. In fact, much of what the NSA is spending billions of dollars doing is replicated on a daily basis by commercial businesses.

Major retailers spend a fortune on “data mining” our lives, so that they can sell us products. Probably the biggest data miner and seller of this information is Google.

We all know Google as the world’s largest search engine company; but that really only covers the tip of the iceberg of what this enormous company does. While Google is helping us find the websites we want to connect to, it is keeping track of our internet activity. They know every search we make, every site we visit, and quite possibly every online purchase we make as well.

Anyone who wants to can find out an amazing amount of information about you and I, simply be doing a search for us online. Remember that remark you made on someone’s YouTube video? Google has it referenced. How about the response to a blog post you read? Well, they know about it as well. Google knows all your personal information and makes most of it available to the public.

We all know about Google maps and how it shows homes. While it may not seem all that important, that information might also show the types of cars you drive or even show members of your family walking in front of your home. There was even a case of Google maps showing a murder, just because of the timing of the event.

I don’t know about you, but to me, that’s just about as frightening as the government knowing what I’m doing. While I don’t really trust the government to operate in our best interest, I know for a fact that there are many others out there, who merely look at my life as source to steal from.

It’s actually much worse than just simple identity theft. With the permanent nature of the Internet record, anything you or I have done is recorded and made available to people forever. Indiscretions of our youth can and will follow us for all the days of our lives.

Oh, it might not affect the older amongst us all that much, as most of their lives aren’t recorded in Google’s database, but it will make a huge difference in the lives of our children, especially those who have been born since the Internet became such a raving success.

This could be enough to ruin lives. A simple article about how someone broke the law or had an affair while in college will follow them all their lives. They will never be able to escape from that reality, as it will be made immediately available to anyone who wants to know.

This could potentially ruin lives, with people unable to find meaningful employment due to something that happened years in the past.

A man in Spain was faced with this very problem, years after the event and even after he’d paid for his crime in jail. Yet, upon release, he struggled to put his life back together, due to his crime being dredged up once again by the news. In his case, he was able to win in court, requiring the newspaper company to expunge the article from their records.

A recent European Union court ruling requires Google and other online companies to delete records if the subject of those records so requests. That’s actually a major breakthrough for personal privacy, as it gives people a tool to use to control who knows what about their lives.

Of course, European privacy laws are much stricter than American ones; so we may never see the same type of protection offered here as what they have over there.

Our best protection is to be careful about what we ourselves post online. Comments made on blogs, tweets on Twitter and posts on Facebook could all be clues to those who want to do us harm. It doesn’t matter if it is government investigators or those who practice identity theft, all those millions of details can provide people with clues into our lives, that we’d rather not let them know.

The outcry against the NSA is legitimate; but I don’t think it should stop there. While many people enjoy having access to everyone’s information online, such information should not be given out easily.

The individual’s privacy has to be considered. They are ultimately the ones who can decide what of their information should be made public and what they keep private, anything else is a direct violation of their privacy, something that our laws have supposedly protected for years.

This article has been written by Bill White for Survivopedia.

Written by

Bill White is the author of Conquering the Coming Collapse, and a former Army officer, manufacturing engineer and business manager. More recently, he left the business world to work as a cross-cultural missionary on the Mexico border. Bill has been a survivalist since the 1970s, when the nation was in the latter days of the Cold War. He had determined to head into the Colorado Rockies, should Washington ever decide to push the button. While those days have passed, the knowledge Bill gained during that time hasn’t. He now works to educate others on the risks that exist in our society and how to prepare to meet them. You can send Bill a message at editor [at] survivopedia.com.

Latest comments
  • It’s already been proven that this is and was never for combating terrorism. The U.S. government has nearly wiped out all of the Bill of Rights with this type of behavior and has not caught any terrorist. This is solely about people control.

    A recent article about DHS raiding flea markets, they admit it was to combat counterfeiting, not terrorism. See here, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/24/flea-market-raid-counterfeit_n_1449998.html. As former U.S. president Jimmy Carter has recently come out and said related to spying,
    We no longer live in a functioning Democracy. It is a Demonacracy. Stripping Americans of their rights has not contributed to their safety at all. Now is the case we are not safe from our so-called protector. If this protectionism is based on the lie of terrorism, then could it be that the reason for implementing the terrorism laws were a lie also? Does any thinking person believe that 9-11 really happened the way the crackpots in Washington said it did?

    Search engines that don’t track you:
    1) http://gibiru.com/
    2) http://duckduckgo.com
    3) https://ixquick.com/eng/?
    4) https://startpage.com
    EMAIL:
    https://unseen.is/

    No Facebook or other social media. You don’t need it. or,
    fake facebook and other personas.

    • Anyone who believes the crackpot story given by the goverment and mainstream media about 9-11, the justification for thr spying and destruction of the Constitution and Bill of Rights needs to see this film by Massimo Mazzucco, “The New Pearl Harbor”. I have every documentary about 9-11 and this one is hands down the best. Leaves nothing out. Because of this It is 5 hours long.
      Get it
      here, it’s free. Download, burn, and share. Wakeup your fellow crackpot American that is dissallusioned by they’re crackpot government. All the other governments of the world know this was a false flag attack.

      Get the Firefox extension called “Download helper” here. Download and convert to .mp4 format for best quality. Find some free mp4 to dvd conversion and burning software. It will take three dvd disk.

  • How can I access MY google info?
    Seems there should be a way to do this, or a law making it available to the watchee.

  • If for some reason you end up on a watch list because you used some key word or have an affiliation to some group. If the watchers do not have as much info on you as they wish, they can just purchase the rest. It’s a clean and simple way of side stepping the constitution. Our Bill of Rights should be amended and laws made to stop, prevent and abolish what has been gathered on us all in the past so that it doesn’t continue. If you don’t believe they can and would go to the private sector for info just look at how law enforcement will use postings and videos from security cameras or cell phones when a crime is committed where these things recorded the event. I have rarely heard of anybody telling law enforcement officers to obtain a warrant in these instances. Most folks just hand it over or buckle under if intimidated for not handing it over when at first asked.

  • Forget what google is tracking. Think about what your smart phone is recording about you: everything that google knows, plus your exact location every waking moment.

  • F*ck Google! startpage.com is a search engine that claims (at least!) not to record your isps and searches. Install it with your (non-microsoft!) browser such as firefox as the default search engine and relax. If google’s got it, you don’t want it!

    • Startpage is a side project from those same faggots that represent ‘Anonymous’,
      almost Dutch-based cunts, want to have their id’s so that their not as anonymous as they wish they were?

  • When I read and think about ‘how’ we can use different ‘sites’ to be safe from prying-eyes, o.k., that sounds good. But, if this email is being sent, then is it Not being able to be ‘read’ by the nsa?? Something doesn’t sound ‘on-the-mark’ here. If the nsa wants to Grab something, from ‘let’s say a site that claims to be Not storing our info’, well do they Not have such power to do so??–O.k. again, —-I go on a So-Called ‘secure-site’, buy something,—then the nsa ‘Grabs’ the info ANYWAY, then Really, what have I accomplished???—In addition, I listen to hours & hours of Boring Stories, about How to Secure one’s home, or Semi-Hideout, but All the time I’m being told, that ‘IF’ I buy their book or whatever batch of ‘papers’ Telling me ‘HOW’ to beat the Goon Squad, then again, is this Not Readily Available to the nsa??, upon (Grab) Request??—Yep, I’m Confused for sure. I believe that If the Goon Squad Wants to get any information they want, then All of these Deals of So-Called Security are Really NOT SECURE, Right??? (BTW, I use Caps as a way to Emphasize my words, I’m Not Yelling) Hey, Business is Business, so What is actually going on??—Who can I trust??? (I’m a N.Y.City boy, who lives in the desert, and we New Yorker’s DON’T TRUST ANYBODY. Please Advise. Thank You.

  • I have seen many list that proclaim who is considered a Domestic Terrorist,now. I believe we must all fit in that group one way or another. I do not mind if Uncle wishes to spend millions watching me or recording me. Has to be the most boring job for Officers in the world. We cannot stop Uncle Sam from spying on US. The important fact is to remember one thing..life is too short to be worrying about things we cannot change. So, relax…enjoy life and your loved ones while you can..and stop worrying what Google or Uncle is doing.. It just does not matter! What matters is the billions of dollars they are wasting!

    • Well Momma, while it is beneficial to your health to Not be in a worrisome state all the time, think about how much you will be ‘worrying’ when they control and dictate every part of your life because you are now a slave and you didn’t worry about it ‘Enough’ when you had the chance to help change it.

      I guarantee you then won’t have much of Any Time to spend ‘relaxing, and enjoying your loved ones anymore.

  • funny! good post

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