Like most people who at least skim news headlines, I heard about Snowden and the NSA scandal. I did not investigate it very much; I hardly read any articles. But I knew it was bad; the NSA freaked out, citizens of the US and other countries brought out their pitchforks, and Edward Snowden, the man who started it all, was either hailed as a whistleblower hero or despised as a traitor. Personally, I saw him (and still do) as the former. That's not to say there are not some security concerns with his huge revelation. In general, however, I think most people agree that at the very least, he did a good thing.
Like most news and national/international crises, the NSA scandal and Snowden's heroism/notoriety faded. Anxiety and anger lingered, but for the average citizen the issues of privacy and gov't surveillance were pushed aside for more immediate issues. Whether you see that as acceptable and natural, or just plain foolish, that's up to you.
Until recently, I had not heard much of anything else about Snowden. I frequently heard things about privacy and the corruption of gov't institutions, except not about the NSA or it's whistleblower. Like most people, I preferred to not acknowledge that our gov't was slimy sometimes. Then, I took a class that centers on the digital age, with a heavy focus on writing online and social media. It's only natural that Snowden and the NSA would come up: we made Twitter accounts and blogs that can be viewed by anyone. Even before the class, most of us were already active on social media. It brought up a lot of questions about what we post online and the effects it may have us in our offline lives.
To really bring home the conflict between privacy as a right and gov't spying as essential to national security, we watched Citizen Four. I was disturbed when I heard about the scandal and skimmed articles, but this movie kind of terrified me. Despite the fear and anger I felt, I kept mentally giving a thumbs up to Snowden for what he did. Still, there was the question of, "Where is he now?"
The answer is in Russia, on Twitter. Half of the stuff I saw on his Twitter feed I did not understand. Or, I got the gist of but couldn't find the interest to actually investigate further. In general, Snowden tweets about gov't corruption, privacy issues, and free internet. One article I found that he retweeted, "Social Media Self-Defense" by Ella Armageddon on the blog Totally Not Malware, sparked my interest.
In this brief but very informative article, I found one of the things that I believe Snowden would like us to take away from Citizen Four and his whistleblowing: take precautions on the internet to protect your privacy before it can be stolen. That's not to say that every innocent thing you post will be used against you, or that you have nothing to worry about if you are really, super careful. But, at the very least, it is less likely something will be used against you if you follow some of the advice in the article.
Some of the advice includes using passwords that even your soulmate would have trouble figuring out; be very aware of the pictures you post; do not put the same information on every account if you do not want others to make connections between the different accounts; and for the love of God (my words), do not get cocky and be discreet. From Rob Ford to Michael Phelps, arrogance in and disrespect for sketchy situations evidenced on social media has brought more than one reputation and career crashing down.
It seems like Snowden is still trying to be the champion of the people's privacy. He follows the NSA on Twitter and tweets about serious issues that should be discussed and recognized more. So, what's Snowden up to? Defending privacy rights of the people and demanding transparency of institutions.
Here's the link to the Self-Defense artilcle: http://blog.totallynotmalware.net/?p=15
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