people that are worried about this stuff need to think about how they conduct their communications.
encryption is the answer to a lot of these concerns - yes is it frightening to think that all our data is being recorded and stored, but rather than see it as a government control plot - think of it as a reality we've all been playing into for years already by being part of the internet.
yes, "they" have lots of information on "us". "they" being our ISPs, most email providers, social media and so fourth. the same goes for our digital financial transactions, and the majority of this stuff is owned, run and controlled by companies in the USA who are cooperative with US intelligence and other government institutions. it's no secret.
the thing is, there is SO MUCH information online, that at this stage (i assume) you'd have to be operating some pretty serious illegal operation to get the attention of whoever is watching all of these digital footprints we leave all about the place.
if you were in this 'line of business' - whatever that may be, but something outside of accepted legal practices - surely you'd know how to avoid some of the more simple methods of being monitored.
that's what encryption is all about. it is used by the financial world in their internet transactions, as well as military and other (ahem) "legitimate" institutions, so using encryption is not in itself incriminating or dodgy.
obviously we don't know what twists the political climate could take at any given time - the push for drug liberalisation could succeed, for example, then create an enormous backlash. or the militarisation of law enforcement could proceed unabated across the globe, leading to all of us who admitted to possessing pot or sharing LSD with our friends or growing opium poppies in the garden 8 years ago on a drug forum could find ourselves singled-out, targeted and who-knows what else.
i agree with the point made that drug control is not about controlling drug use, or the people from the harms of drug use.
it is about controlling people.
each drug that was banned in the 20th century in the US (and then by the rest of the world, at their urging) was directed at a group of people associated with that drug's use. be they chinese (opium), mexican (cannabis) psychedelics such as LSD, mescaline, psilocybin (the 60s counter-culture/anti-vietnam war movement/new left) - the drug bans allowed the easy prosecution and disempowerment of whole groups of people. this continues in the states with the massive amounts of african american and hispanic and other non-whites in the country's jails.
"segregation" may have been broken down in the 1960s as an official, acceptable social policy; but in practice, many of the ways ethnic groups were controlled by white america are still in place, just by a different name and a different set of rules.
this is arguably exactly the same in australia - indigenous people were legally restricted from even entering the streets of many of our cities until the late 1960s. the state actively sought to enforce language, culture and religion on these people by force, and by removing children from their parents.
we might not do that any more, but much of the bad blood remains - the distrust, the government paternalism, the massive over-representation of aboriginal people in australian prisons.
what i'm getting at here is that people can be targeted - are targeted by authorities, and in the digital age this is increasingly aided by corporate information sharing. social control is carried out by the technology of the day - whether it is sticks and clubs, guns and chains, tasers and tear gas or digital surveillance.
who is targeted is a matter of the political currents of the time. is it islamic extremists? suspected drug traffickers?
hell - last year in perth, a few days before CHOGM (commonwealth heads of government meeting) several activists of environmentalist direct action groups (namely forest rescue) were approached by federal police and handed documents stating that they were not permitted to enter the 'restricted zones' of the convention. this area covered a pretty large chunk of land - the entire perth CBD through to the western suburbs into the university of western australia if i remember correctly.
it is understood that these people were located by tracking their mobile phones, as they weren't all at home when they were 'paid a visit' by these government officers.
the point i guess i am trying to make is that it is fucked up, it is scary - it is already happening; but it is everybody's personal responsibility not to be too complacent or too naive about our online activities. ignorance - or indignation - is no excuse!
a community like bluelight makes it seem quite normal to import illegal or potentially illegal substances, and people are often quite blase in talking about this. whilst this in itself might not necessarily cause any implications for those individuals (in the sense that their identity and their self-incrimination may not be noted or linked by LE) it can certainly lead people into a sense of invulnerability that is quite dangerous.
i'm not a computer expert, nor someone with great insight into the practices of the intelligence community or the various police/military/government information analysts that track what happens online.
these are powerful people protecting the interests of powerful organisations. there is huge money in prohibition; be it in legal detection, in covert distribution (as has been known to happen to fund various shady government practices, eg the "iran contra affair" and many others), asset and money confiscation and of course the protection of the interests of pharmaceutical companies - to name but a few.
these people may not be "out to get you" (or i, or anyone in particular), but if you walk into their traps, or do something indiscreet which raises a red flag - you may well find yourself in their sights.
whether this means they watch your communications, your financial transactions, your associations, your movements - well, there is plenty of choice if you choose to take part in the wonders of modern technology.
i'm not saying i think it is ok - because i don't. but if you don't want to be monitored by CCTV everywhere you go, you might want to think about moving to a remote place. if you don't want to be potentially tracked everywhere you go, don't use a smart phone - or a mobile at all. if you don't want the authorities - or any mass-information gathering project - to know who you associate with, don't use social media like facebook. don't use email. if you don't want your intimate thoughts and curiosities being recorded indefinitely - don't use google.
if you want privacy, stay away from communications technology - there is no guarantee of privacy in any of them, whether it is corporate information gathering or government intelligence or law enforcement.
we treat these things like our god-given right as first-world western consumers, but then people seem shocked to find out that the information you share and put out there in using these tools is actually collected for a number of reasons - not just to find out politically or legally sensitive material, but also for demographic research, for advertising - for a huge range of things.
it's a compromise we make. it's not really a secret, especially if you listen to the sort of activists that are involved in the cypherpunk movement and their efforts to navigate the web in more covert ways to prevent the internet having such a potential for mass surveillance of the population leading to totalitarianism.
even on a really simple, lo-tech and local level, if you have a dealing with the police - it is very common for them to go through your mobile phone and take data from it.
all of this stuff is very uncomfortable for a lot of us - and yes even those of us who are completely law-abiding citizens.
the key, at this stage is to be aware of it.
it is not paranoid to be concerned about it, it is not a delusional thought process to believe we are all being monitored.
we are. to what extent? that's hard for us to say. we may never know.
but governments have been spying on their own citizens for as long as these sorts of institutions of power have existed. whether it is the spanish inquisition, the stasi, mossad or the CIA - governments monitor what people are up to for all kinds of reasons.
the more aware of this we are as individuals - and the more conscious we are of what we share online the "safer" from persecution we are likely to be.
there is no such thing as privacy in the digital age. it's an illusion, at best.
