SAFETY AND PRIVACY PREPSFor a few years now, we have known Homeland Security has preppers (they call us survivalists), military vets, and religious right fanatics (I think that means Christians) on their list of possible domestic terrorists.
Now, this week we hear about the National Security Agency is sucking your information off the web and your phone. This one really surprised me: If you have a “smart” phone (I don’t, mine is a plain cell phone), which is one that connects to the internet and has other fancy things it can do, the NSA can not only trace that phone to a certain cell tower, it can find where you are actually are, and they can identify you on that phone by the way you walk and if you use someone else’s smart phone, you can still be found using that phone, by your walk pattern. Smart phone are too smart (there is a certain chip in that phone that doesn’t turn off) and if I had one like that, I’d hand it in and get a plain one. I would rather be private with my calls but that isn’t possible any more as any kind of cell phone can trace the cell tower it is talking to. Maybe using a regular house phone can’t be sucked off by the NSA. Consider the phone you have and if it is one of the high class smart ones, consider the risk and downsize if you want to lessen that risk.
Look, I don’t like phones in the first place. If I could, I wouldn’t have one, period. I’ll prefer sending an email so it’s plain what I am saying. But, I have to have a phone. I use my house phone unless I have to call long distance. And, I usually don’t carry my cell phone with me so I suppose “Big Brother” can’t find me. Why does it matter if I can be tracked? It matters, JUST BECAUSE. Just because, it is none of their business where I am. Where do we stop this? Maybe you say, “Well, it’s okay if they know where I am because I’m not doing anything wrong.” No, it is not okay if they know where you are – it is not okay. This is too much like the book/film, “1984”. The name of the film, “1984” was all over the web yesterday and the day before due to the surveillance of the program “Prism” that had been revealed the NSA was using to suck your information, emails, purchases from credit card companies and phone calls into that program. It appears the information is going to a new complex for “information” built in Utah at a cost of billions. It will be fully operational by the end of this year. We can call that “The Ministry of Information”.
“1984”: You can read that book at
http://www.george-orwell.org/1984/0.html You can watch the movie at
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=George+Orwell+1984+Movie&view=detail&mid=A100C52533577DE9A74EA100C52533577DE9A74E&first=0&FORM=NVPFVRThere are numerous versions of the film at the link above so you can watch the one the link starts or choose one of the other versions listed at the top and side of that page. That movie/book is the start of the phrase, “Big Brother”. Most people know what “Big Brother” means – that the government is watching you and running your life.
In “1984”, there are separate government divisions. They are The Ministry of Truth, The Ministry of Peace, The Ministry of Plenty, and The Ministry of Love. The goal of each government division is the opposite of the name. The Truth division is rewriting every history book so it’s all lies, the Peace division is about lying about winning a war, the Plenty division is lying about having food and all goods, the Love division is lies because that is where they execute you. These “Ministries” sound like the “Ministry of Information” almost built in Utah to house all our personal information. When our health records are transmitted to government for our “health care”, that information will also be in Utah as that is now the information division that I just named “The Ministry of Information” .
I read in an article yesterday the fact that Homeland Security can turn off your TV and talk to you, telling you what to do, and they don’t have to turn the TV back on for regular programming. (“1984” uses that technique, too and that system could see you move around your house). Well, I’ve talked about this before and this article said the very same thing I have been saying – get a short wave receiver radio to listen to ham operators since Homeland Security and the NSA can’t control that. Gee, the public should have listened to me many months ago when I brought that up in one of these articles. No joke, consider getting a short wave receiver radio. My friends who live in the Texas hill country did that and I’m glad they did.
Homeland Security and I suppose now we must add the NSA, are suspicious of preppers (survivalists). Normally, a prepper will have a self-defense weapon and maybe more than one and use one or more of those for game for food if necessary. I think it is having a weapon that puts us in the sights of these government entities. I simply don’t think it’s water and food and batteries, etc., that makes us suspect. If you read the news a lot, you know that since certain states passed strict gun laws, firearms are being confiscated illegally now by some of those states. Power can be used for evil purposes so be careful who has that power.
Laws in general: A friend of mine who is heavily into politics and state government, talked about a law that was being discussed to be passed in our state Senate. This was several years ago, not currently. The Senate had a Republican majority. I told her to remember a law affects both parties and asked would she want that law there if there was a Democrat majority? Would she want a Democrat Senate to have that power? She said she hadn’t thought about that and would have to consider that proposed law again.
President George Bush wanted a new law, the Patriot Act, after 911, so he could find terrorists wherever they were – he needed to use surveillance to find these people. That was a good law at that time to help keep the country safe. I believe President Bush did not and would not, use that information against his political opponents or other citizens. Then, a new president came in, Barack Hussein Obama, and that law was still law – now, he is using it to gather information on all of us – our emails, our phone calls, our credit card transactions, our posts on websites, everything about us. You see, this is the same thing as passing a law in Texas when there was a Republican majority. When the majority changes to the other party, is that still a good law? I think President Hussein Obama is abusing that law just as his IRS people have abused IRS law to intimidate organizations that have Patriot or Tea Party in their names. People stopped contributing to those organizations for fear they would be audited by the IRS if they did and it was true as some were audited.
Preps under the present situation:How do you feel about your personal information being sucked off and it will be in a complex in Utah maybe forever? Technology in the hands of a person who can’t be trusted, is a serious situation that can lead to tyranny as in “1984”. There are already billions of bits of information the NSA has obtained and it will keep going as long as the present president is in power.
What can you do to protect your information? In a SHTF situation, you need a way to be able to get news that isn’t compromised and that is the short wave receiver battery operated radio. Then, consider your options. Every email or post you make, everything you do on Facebook can be mined and kept by the NSA, as well as your phone calls. I am already toast since I write these articles on this website. This website by its name, Survival Podcast, makes it a target of Homeland Security and the NSA. I hope that sentence doesn’t get removed from this article because it is the truth. Trying to hide on the internet isn’t possible. Having “Survival” in the name of a website automatically makes it suspect. If you post on this website, it can be, and probably is, captured.
Internet: You need to decide how freely you want to act on the internet. If you don’t connect to the internet at all, you have eliminated a threat to your information. That would mean not sending an email, either. Simply don’t connect for anything. I can’t do that as part of my life happens on the internet. The government already has enough information on me on the internet to label me an extreme prepper, so I’ll just keep writing articles.
Phones and hand held radios: Stop using a cell phone. Don’t recharge it, let the battery die. Use your house phone only if you absolutely need to make a call. If you are in a line of sight from a friend, buy hand held radios and give one of them to your friend. Those radios can’t be tracked by government entities. If there is a mass of buildings between you and the other person, the signal can’t jump those buildings – remember “line of sight”. A number of months ago, I researched these radios to see if I could connect to my friend who lives across town and I determined there is too much “junk” in the terrain between us for them to work. As I remember, I think the term is “family radios” to put in search on Amazon to read about all the radios. The bestselling set of radios on Amazon is the Motorola below. Please read customer comments as they will give you an idea of how distance and objects affect these radios (on this page you can order a set of two or three):
http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-MH230R-23-Mile-22-Channel-Two-Way/dp/B001UE6MIO/ref=cm_cr_pr_pb_t What else can you do to have privacy? You can store what you need to survive so if a collapse comes, which seems closer and closer, you have what you need, maybe even those radios for talking to friends/family, and you drop from civilization. If you “need” items to survive in a case like that, you will end up asking the government for them and there goes your privacy – they have you from then on. If you are totally sufficient, you don’t have to be around anyone, especially someone from the government who is there “to help you” – right.
Become INDEPENDENT. Trust YOURSELF to supply your needs. That is the best answer to provide PRIVACY for you and your family when it counts the most (and at that time, take the battery out of your cell phone “just in case” – and never at that time, walk around with it off your property as “The Information Ministry” might check to see where you are).