Ever since Edward Snowden informed the world of just how much the NSA was spying on American citizens, you have understood the extent in which they use their capabilities, right?  While it may technically require a court order against someone possibly intending to commit a crime, you know that your text messages, emails, and phone conversations can be accessed by the Federal government, right?

     Perhaps until 2020, this didn't concern you much.  Personally, I was never too worried about being considered a potential criminal until I saw the draconian lock downs imposed in several states throughout the country. In a world where "wrong think" is increasingly censored, mocked, and expelled from the public square, will a time come where it is practially criminal to speak anything deemed "too dangerous for public discourse" ?  I bet you didn't know that while most of us were too busy freaking out over the hours of "panic porn" created by the media over the Wuhan Virus over the summer, the United States Congress failed to pass a bill barring the Federal government from accessing any citizen's internet history WITHOUT A WARRANT!

     I have always both admired and pitied Edward Snowden. He supported Barrack Obama while believing that the "change" he promised would include renouncing a Bush administration security policy granting the Federal government license to spy on its citizens until the terrorism “crisis” was over.  Snowden has gone on record expressing his disillusion when he realized that the Obama administration had no intentions of abandoning the privileges afforded to power-hungry men at the cost of American freedoms and privacy. 

     Arch-Bishop Fulton Sheen once argued that the dropping of the atomic bomb upon Hiroshima was the moment that practically erased the boundaries of acceptable human behavior.  By directly targeting such a high number of non-combatants, without significantly considering the long term consequences, and under the appeal that the "ends justified the means", a new age of relativism had arrived.  Perhaps such a phenomenon has been at play since the inception of the Patriot Act.  After all, how can one object to the possibility that even his most intimate moments with his wife could theoretically be heard through the speaker of his phone, when at the end of the day, the program is ultimately designed to stop evil people from suicide bombing you and your kids at the baseball game?  Furthermore, if we can get used to such possible privacy invasions for the sake of our security, how hard is it to become used to Big Tech unscrupulously using your data?

     Big Tech scowers your data, uses it to "enhance" your next online shopping experience, and they even sell very sensitive information to the highest bidder (how old you are, how many kids you have, their names, etc...).  Hey, perhaps it creeps you out, but when I talk about needing a garage door opener in front of my voice recognition smart TV, then see an ad the next day for garage door openers on Facebook, I call that convenience!  Thank you for looking out for me, Big Tech!

     Over the last 20 years, we have allowed very powerful and unscrupulous people to be our voyeurs.  And at what price have we sold something as fundamental and sacred to our human nature as our privacy? Free apps from Google play? The satisfaction of showing life highlight reels to all of our friends on social media? The luxury of only having to verbally speak the address to your GPS instead of having to type it out with your finger? As Wilbur returned to the farm the moment he smelled dinner, we have traded our freedom for slops!

     We currently live in an age where if I told a random person on the street that I identified as a gender transcendent mermaid queen-king, he would be expected to keep a straight face, and perhaps even give me a congratulations. But if you only knew the judgment I receive upon pulling out my flip phone in the year 2020. Children and old ladies alike feel both afraid to associate with me and an immense amount of sympathy for backward me. What a sorry chap I must be to STILL have a "dumb phone".  I'm ok with being unable to convince you to be so extreme (read to the bottom for a link to our Anti-Big Tech smart phone tips).  But at least consider this: if you own a phone that does not allow you to remove the battery, THEY DID THAT TO YOU FOR A REASON!  And despise this lowly peasant for declaring the following, but you are the one holding the trinket, not I.

     There may be no way to totally escape Big Tech in their pursuit to know more about you than your spouse does (they do, by the way).  There is probably no way to fully escape the NSA and their never ending "crusade to stop terrorism"; one monitored text message from basic American dad to his college aged kid at a time. Nevertheless, there is always merit in fighting for the sake of your own dignity and doing your own part to resist the New World Order.  Before you double check your calendar to ensure the year isn't 1984, please ask yourself, "how often do I talk to Alexa?", "Do I fall back on Google (way left leaning, shadow banning, trans-humanist weirdos)instead of search engines committed to privacy protection?", "Do I take reasonable and practical measures to safeguard my family’s privacy?"

     If you are interested in adding this cause to your good fight, check out the Gadfly Report's Anti-Big Tech Guide now.  It is a well researched guide put together by freedom loving subject matter experts in the tech industry committed to helping you fight the beast.  We are all on a journey together where the path ahead gets darker and deadlier everyday. Please, use these resources and let's proudly take the back roads as we avoid the eye of Sauron every little bit we can. 

Enjoy and God bless.

-Gadfly