The Erasure of Privacy (and what we can do to fix it)

     It is truly a modern tragedy that we all know so much about each other. I was raised to think "honesty is the best policy", and while I believe that's true, it's not realistic as an hard rule. It's important to speak your mind, especially to your friends, family and loved ones. It's important to be able to authentically tell the world who you are, what you care for,  and yet, there are limits. Some things are best kept secret. Yet, secrecy in the modern world is a precious and rare thing, something that some younger people might have gone their whole life without truly experiencing. 

    I happen to be in a very unique position when writing about such a thing, I was born in 2005, when sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Youtube were in their infancy. The whole internet was, and though I barely remember it, I was alive for the last years when our lives were not digital. When I was starting elementary school, I received an IPod, and my parents had Facebook accounts for talking with distant friends. When I walked across the stage at graduation, I had an IPhone 13 in my pocket, several social media accounts to my name, and a digital footprint that I only recently understood the significance of. In a way, the modern internet and I grew up together, sharing the same formative years, and because of that, I understand it on a level that not many older people can. My most important takeaway is this: Nothing is Hidden, Sacred, or Unknown. If it happened, and there was a phone or camera of some sort present, it exists forever. If it exists, and someone wants to know about you, they'll find it. If I wanted to go back and look for all the digital activity of my classmates and I from 8 years ago, I could find it. I remember distinctly not wandering around outside much in my hometown, because cameras were everywhere, and the police had a particular disdain for anything fun. This isn't a dig at my town's police department, by the way, me and my classmates, in the 7th grade, were told to leave the local park's playground by the police because we were playing tag while some elementary age kids were present. Though the overprotection of American kids is a separate issue that deserves it's own blog, the point still pertains to this- someone was always watching, and we never forgot that fact. 

    With all that said, all our respective cards are on the table for others to see, so... what do we do? I'd argue we start with limiting government power to surveil so many. Examples of things like the Patriot Act and Freedom Act, and the provisions therein, need to be called out is immoral at best, and actively harmful at worst. The vulnerability of the people to National Security threats like terrorism and mass shootings is real, but I'm of the opinion that more surveillance and privacy infringement is not the answer. Along with that, I think a market will expand for services and products that offer themselves as privacy havens. VPNs, alternate browsers besides chrome, and services like DeleteMe have already proven that people are willing to pay for their privacy, and that pool is only going to get bigger.