In an era when most Americans have put so much of their lives online, it’s easy to be complacent about online privacy. We’ve been told that as long as we have nothing to hide, we have nothing to fear. But in fact, an increasingly powerful surveillance state is a major threat to individual liberty and to the country as a whole. Matt Kibbe sits down with Naomi Brockwell, founder and president of the Ludlow Institute, to talk about why privacy still matters and to outline several ways that ordinary people can easily safeguard their digital data. This is important, because once the government knows everything about you, it can use that information to silence criticism and stifle dissent. Even those who approve of the current administration have to imagine that at some point, someone else is going to be in power, someone who might want to crack down on all the freedoms we hold dear. Without privacy, it becomes almost impossible to push back against oppressive regimes.
