Privacy and anonymity have been reduced to the point of
non-existence in recent years (Thanks Obama). Our personal,
private information is stockpiled and sold to the highest
bidder like so much inventory at a warehouse. National
Security Letters are written to make countless requests for
records from our search engines, libraries, and book stores
with no court oversight. Email and especially searchable
data is practically unprotected from anyone who might ask to
have it. All our electronic communications are tapped.
Massive governmental data mining schemes are being built to
record everything we publish on the web. In many workplaces,
employers spy on and control their employees' Internet
access, and this practice is widely considered to be
acceptable.

These are dark times. The Fourth Amendment has all but
disappeared, thanks to the Wars on Drugs, Porn, and Terror.
Any practicing trial lawyer will tell you that you can no
longer rely on unreasonable search to be the basis for
excluding evidence, especially for digital evidence in the
hands of a third party. Likewise the First Amendment has
been shredded with exceptions and provisos, and is only
truly available to those with the money to fight costly (and
usually frivolous) court battles against large corporations.
In short, you can say what you want so long as it doesn't
affect corporate profits.

How we got to a legal state where all this activity is the
accepted norm, I'm not quite sure. It seems to stem from an
underlying assumption that our function at work and at home
is that of a diligent slave - a single unit of economic
output under the direct watch and total control of our
superiors at all times; that we should accept this
surveillance because we should have nothing to hide from our
benevolent overlords who are watching us merely to protect
us from evil.

I believe this view is wrong. Moreover, I believe it is time
to reverse the tide. This document seeks to provide the
means to protect your right to privacy, freedom of speech,
and anonymous net access even under the most draconian of
conditions - including, but not limited to, both private and
criminal investigation (which happens far more often to
innocent people than one might like to think). "So what are
you saying? That I can dodge bullets?" "No.. What I am
trying to tell you is that when you're ready, you won't have
to."