ThinkingPrivacy is written for thinking, proactive people who are fed up with the disgusting levels at which corporate and technology norms now exploit our individual and collective privacy. Our entire system of democracy is under attack in ways far more devious than Orwell could possibly imagine. The average citizen or consumer today is making many of the wrong choices daily, giving away their own rights of privacy wholesale — and more concerning, even giving away yours and mine without our permission.
The Surveillance Economy was stealthily and gradually crammed into our ubiquitously networked devices and systems. Despite some of us being angry about it and great strides of progress in Europe to rein in this insanity, the pace of growth in corporate surveillance is still nearly unchecked.
Comprehensive solutions must occur through legal means at state, national and international levels, but even now as individuals there are many behavioral and technical options we can choose that can make immediate and long-term improvements in our privacy and security. We can fight this scourge with our wallets, our votes, our minds, and by using a broad and growing set of end-user tools.
This blog is written and hosted by John Weible, an independent-minded IT systems developer, university instructor, and entrepreneur in Illinois, USA. I advocate for life-long learning, real science, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and all other civil rights. Horrifyingly, even those tenets of democracy are sometimes confused by the ignorant and warped by the powerful to justify the very destruction of our liberties and undermine democracy.