Thanks :) I don't think it's a conspiracy theory, I just think that the way he frames it is a bit overly dramatic. Personally I just try to stay relatively anonymous and I operate under the assumption that whatever I say or do is basically public information. I can't be bothered with encryption when I'm talking to my friends because those conversations usually consist of things like, "Where do you want to eat?"
I see, so you think if you just try to be as boring as possible, then you have nothing to fear from surveillance? Good luck with that.
What if the world changes, and yesterday's orthodoxy is tomorrow's heresy? This used to happen in the old Soviet Union, all the time.
What if, unknown to you, you are friends with a guy who the government doesn't like? This very thing happened to Maher Arar - actually it was two hops away, his friend's brother signed his lease, and that's all that was needed for the US government to whisk him from JFK airport to be tortured in a Syrian dungeon. Maher Arar is a guy just like you and me - he works in wireless tech, and crossed from Canada to America all the time. See http://maherarar.net/ .
Why do I have to explain this to someone whose nick is georgeorwell?
Why would I mention anything except boring stuff over an insecure channel? Why would I even assume that secure channels or trustworthy conversation partners truly exist? As for Arar, like it or not, it seems like his problem was that he was born Syrian.
