What should we be doing as freedom loving americans, to increase our privacy

*Disclaimer: I am not owned, employed, or hold financial interests by any companies mentioned below.

Given recent leaks from Wikileaks, Snowden and other whistleblowers, I think it is imperative to find out how we can wrestle back some form of control and privacy over ourselves as individuals. Im going to name a few steps Ive personally taken and ask you the reader what you're doing to rectify this assault.

1). Leave all social networks:

In 2012 I left facebook, linkd in, and all other smaller forms of networking. Why? I saw the immediate propensity for misuse and destruction these platforms had. This facebook is innocuous and collects little data? Below is just a short list of the type of data you freely have given up.

1. Location
2. Age
3. Generation
4. Gender
5. Language
6. Education level
7. Field of study
8. School
9. Ethnic affinity
10. Income and net worth
11. Home ownership and type
12. Home value
13. Property size
14. Square footage of home
15. Year home was built
16. Household composition
17. Users who have an anniversary within 30 days
18. Users who are away from family or hometown
19. Users who are friends with someone who has an anniversary, is newly married or engaged, recently moved, or has an upcoming birthday
20. Users in long-distance relationships
21. Users in new relationships
22. Users who have new jobs
23. Users who are newly engaged
24. Users who are newly married
25. Users who have recently moved
26. Users who have birthdays soon
27. Parents
28. Expectant parents
29. Mothers, divided by “type” (soccer, trendy, etc.)
30. Users who are likely to engage in politics
31. Conservatives and liberals
32. Relationship status
33. Employer
34. Industry
35. Job title
36. Office type
37. Interests
38. Users who own motorcycles
39. Users who plan to buy a car (and what kind/brand of car, and how soon)
40. Users who bought auto parts or accessories recently
41. Users who are likely to need auto parts or services
42. Style and brand of car you drive
43. Year car was bought
44. Age of car
45. How much money user is likely to spend on next car
46. Where user is likely to buy next car
47. How many employees your company has
48. Users who own small businesses
49. Users who work in management or are executives
50. Users who have donated to charity (divided by type)
51. Operating system
52. Users who play canvas games
53. Users who own a gaming console
54. Users who have created a Facebook event
55. Users who have used Facebook Payments
56. Users who have spent more than average on Facebook Payments
57. Users who administer a Facebook page
58. Users who have recently uploaded photos to Facebook
59. Internet browser
60. Email service
61. Early/late adopters of technology
62. Expats (divided by what country they are from originally)
63. Users who belong to a credit union, national bank or regional bank
64. Users who investor (divided by investment type)
65. Number of credit lines
66. Users who are active credit card users
67. Credit card type
68. Users who have a debit card
69. Users who carry a balance on their credit card
70. Users who listen to the radio
71. Preference in TV shows
72. Users who use a mobile device (divided by what brand they use)
73. Internet connection type
74. Users who recently acquired a smartphone or tablet
75. Users who access the Internet through a smartphone or tablet
76. Users who use coupons
77. Types of clothing user’s household buys
78. Time of year user’s household shops most
79. Users who are “heavy” buyers of beer, wine or spirits
80. Users who buy groceries (and what kinds)
81. Users who buy beauty products
82. Users who buy allergy medications, cough/cold medications, pain relief products, and over-the-counter meds
83. Users who spend money on household products
84. Users who spend money on products for kids or pets, and what kinds of pets
85. Users whose household makes more purchases than is average
86. Users who tend to shop online (or off)
87. Types of restaurants user eats at
88. Kinds of stores user shops at
89. Users who are “receptive” to offers from companies offering online auto insurance, higher education or mortgages, and prepaid debit cards/satellite TV
90. Length of time user has lived in house
91. Users who are likely to move soon
92. Users who are interested in the Olympics, fall football, cricket or Ramadan
93. Users who travel frequently, for work or pleasure
94. Users who commute to work
95. Types of vacations user tends to go on
96. Users who recently returned from a trip
97. Users who recently used a travel app
98. Users who participate in a timeshare

As an alternative I have made a smaller close knit group of friends, instead of the 600+ psuedo friends who expected Happy birthday, anniversary, and like requests for validation on a daily basis, and while it takes more work, I find it more rewarding to have friends that are willing to call and stop by then text in passing.

2). Dump your free email & search engine:

Companies like Google who offer free services and are also the worst for privacy(hint your communications have none). Every personal email, search, and click ad to a monstrous profile kept to categorize you. Do you like guns, have you had an argument with your wife? You maybe unstable and need a visit from child protective services. Sound funny? Not according to news and tech writers nationwide. The washington post as early as 2015 was advocating using personal communications to curtail perceived crimes(see link below paragraph). Wile some will think, "thats fair" we will all be safer Id offer the counter argument "In the event a crime is not committed, or the program predicted falsely, will you still be branded as a felonious character and person of interest in future predictions?" Furthermore, any medical data from online prescriptions, relationships, and arguments will be accessible by your email and search engine provider to profile you better in the future. My personal solution was to sign up for a paid email provider, protonmail and use different search engines like startpage and duckduckgo.

https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/11/18/can-predictive-policing-be-ethical-and-effective/social-media-will-help-predict-crime

1. Buy a VPN

In the past, changing your email and search engines offered some level of security. However, now that congress has allowed your personal web traffic data to be sold for profit, I feel it is imperative to anonymize your footprint via vpn.

In closing Id just like to ask you the reader if there are any other options, alternatives, and suggestions you may have. I am very excited about steemit and am hoping to see more youtube content writers come on board and post videos for use-seeing how google feels they deserve no monetization and steemit is the exact free market inverse at this time. Thanks for reading and have a great weekend.