I do not want to NSA-proof my email or phone conversations. I do not want to wear a mask to avoid face recognition and what more propositions are yet to come how we should adapt to the situation given.
While we are are from the ideal world where this behaviour would be without consequences, the matter asks for a change of the situation we are finding ourselves in.
Get loud, get political. Don't dream that you are holding a weapon in your hand because you can half assedly encrypt peer to peer communication. This is only confirming the status quo. Like n umbrella might confirm it's raining.
As side-thought: the same technical reflex might have occurred to that institutions in the first place: let's record everything and we will be more safe.
A major problem with this is that advanced surveillance technology and the increased sharing and cooperation between the various spy agencies and ever more militarized police force is being used to target, spy on, and repress political activists and protestors.
If you seriously, but peacefully and non-violently, try to oppose the surveillance state aparatus and are deemed to be a threat to the huge sums of money they are getting to fight the good fight or a threat to the power they're ammassing, you can expect to be spied upon and harassed at the bare minimum. The more of a threat they consider you to be, the more you're likely to find yourself in jail or worse.
Of course, this has been par for the course for political activists ever since Spartacus led a slave rebellion, and it will not stop the minority truly dedicated and idealistic activists. But the tools of state surveillance and repression have advaced so much that it's much harder for ordinary people to participate in the political process beyond voting for two mostly the same parties, writing emails, or making phone calls without suffering serious consequences.
This is scaring a lot of people off from even trying to make a difference. In many ways, many of us already are living in a dystopia.
That said, trying to raise the political consciousness, technological literacy, and privacy awarenss of the average individual is still a very worthwhile and usually safe thing to do (depending on how radical and confrontational your tactics are), and we'd all be much better off if more people did this instead of throwing up their hands and giving up or pretending it's not happening.
I came along to post a very similar thought. NSA proofing my email won't do any good. I'm not worried about the NSA (or my country's equivalent) spying on me. I'm worried about what are the consequences of their unchecked power in general.
I think do both. But yes, in the long term, a political solution is the only good solution. I hate how all this spying forces us into regressing on usability and also stops us from using some features, simply because we know NSA is on to doing nefarious things with all that data.
But we shouldn't have to worry about that sort of stuff, because we should have strong laws in place protecting against such mass spying.
While we are are from the ideal world where this behaviour would be without consequences, the matter asks for a change of the situation we are finding ourselves in.
Get loud, get political. Don't dream that you are holding a weapon in your hand because you can half assedly encrypt peer to peer communication. This is only confirming the status quo. Like n umbrella might confirm it's raining.
As side-thought: the same technical reflex might have occurred to that institutions in the first place: let's record everything and we will be more safe.