And, if this passes, is there any way to protect myself? Obviously if the NSA is hoarding zero-days there isn't much you can do, but what are some practical steps?
1) avoid airports and security cameras
2) use an offshore VPN at all times
3) don't use the phone, use E2E encrypted calling like Signal
4) use cash as often as possible, or cryptocurrency
Or does none of that matter?
The government knowing literally everything about my life (yes, I know they almost certainly do already)
> what I'm trying to hide
More like what I'm trying to protect: the naive assumption that the government does not deserve to have this depth and breadth of information on literally every citizen for no legitimate reason.
I also personally would prefer not to be spied on. I do not want my day-to-day activities monitored by anyone but myself. In the event that the government starts curtailing freedoms or particular kinds of behavior and thought, I do not want to be left susceptible. So I guess my threat model is "generalized spying". I assume I would be powerless to stop anything specifically targeted at me, so I would like to avoid becoming a target in the first place.
If and when I start buying oxidizing chemicals, drug precursors, or ammunition, then you are more than welcome to start tracking my purchases and usage of those products.
In this case, you should be proactive not only against NSA, but GOOG, FB, your ISP etc.
You should look into Tails OS if you haven't already.
My Instagram account is long gone, my Facebook account will be gone before the end of the month (I use it once a week at most anyway), and I've long since stopped using any Google account for anything. I run multiple browser extensions that help me delete cookies, block Javascript, etc. The VPN should hopefully take care of my ISP. It try to avoid even sending emails to Gmail accounts.
I haven't tried Tails, but I will look into it when I get some time free.
I think of it a little differently. I am trying to be part of a collective movement toward as much privacy as possible so that those who do need to protect themselves can have access to the tools they need and won't stick out when they use them. A sort of herd immunity.
I guess a good start are habits that neutralize automated mass surveillance. Targeted surveillance would be a whole other ballgame and unfortunately I don't think our tools are at a place to make this feasible for me to practice.
by creating a standard you are effectively creating an easy way and/or justification to automate against that standard. I think your logic is sound, but consider the big picture. The more people do things in a certain way, the higher the incentive to investigate that way.
>Let us speak no more of faith in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of cryptography.
This would actually be far more likely to enable collection of your traffic, whereas US Persons cannot be queried.