The NSA is working relentlessly to access information about individuals. Apart from the now infamous PRISM program, the NSA runs several programs all having one intention: to listen into private conversations. Spying on people and organizations is the primary duty of the NSA. However, you may find yourself in the crosshairs of NSA surveillance activities even when you are not involved in any criminal activity.
It, therefore, follows that you need to protect yourself against NSA surveillance practices. There are several methods that you can use to protect yourself against the activities of NSA; however, here are some of the most important ones that you can use.
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#1. Protect your traffic by using a VPN
A VPN encrypts all the data that you send and receive when you are connected to the internet. By all accounts, using a VPN is one of the most efficient methods of thwarting the possibility of NSA carrying out surveillance activities against you. A VPN makes you completely anonymous when you get online. It, therefore, makes it almost impossible for a third party to pick you out from the crowd and attempt to trace your online activities. Therefore, for you to protect your privacy and prevent the NSA from spying on you, if ever they get a reason to spy on you, you should use a good VPN service for all your browsing activities.
It is easy for anyone to track you down by analyzing the things that you post on social media. For example, if you are fond of posting your location on social media, someone can easily tell your location. It becomes easy for the NSA to tell your exact location if a need ever arises. Besides, if you are fond of posting your personal issues on social media platform, know that you are making it very easy for spies to piece together the story of your life.
For you to thwart all the attempts by the NSA to spy on you, avoid posting your personal issues on social media platforms. Also, disable geotagging features on your social media apps.
#3. Encrypt all your data
You need to encrypt all the data that you keep on your devices. The files that you store on your hard drive are of particular importance. You have to encrypt them using special encryption software program as a way of protecting them from spies. There are very many encryption software programs that you can use to encrypt your data. For example, you can choose any of the programs that are for sale. On the other hand, you can use any of the open source programs that are not for sale.
If you encrypt your files, you make it difficult for spies and hackers to access your data. Besides, you can send your files over the internet when they are in the encrypted form. Doing this helps to protect your data the more.
#4. Encrypt all your Email messages
Spying agencies like the NSA usually target email communication of the persons that they are interested in. Under normal circumstances, the email messages that we send and receive are open game to spying agencies. The likes of NSA can easily intercept your email communication and read the actual content of your messages. However, you can prevent this from happening by using special email encryption methods.
There are very many software programs that can help you to encrypt your email messages. The programs scramble your messages and make it tough for spying agencies to access the contents of your messages because the agencies will have to decrypt all your messages. Besides, you can use special email services that are focused on encrypting all the messages of clients and ensuring that third parties cannot access the messages
#5. Disable geolocation features on your phone
Always remember that spying agencies find it easy to follow their targets by focusing on the smartphones of the targets. Your smartphone can be your major giveaway if it ever happens that spying agency is after you. One of the features of your smartphone that can give you away is the geo-location feature.
For you to be safe, disable all the apps on your phone that want to tell your geographical location. Such apps typically collect a lot of information about you. Spying agencies and hackers can then use the information to track your movements.
In conclusion, these are some of the most effective methods that you can use to avoid NSA surveillance. If you use them correctly, you can easily thwart all the attempts by the NSA or any other spying agency of following you.