190_How to Maintain Your Internet Privacy and Freedom

How would you feel if your neighbor came to your mailbox everyday and opened your mail? How would you feel if someone was always looking over your shoulder to monitor everything you did on the internet? I think most people would say "NO!" And they would say no because such things are an invasion of our privacy.

We now live in a very connected world. More and more we depend on the internet for personal services, business purposes, data storage, communication and entertainment. But what most people do not realize is that there is very little privacy in the online world and most of what you do is monitored by someone.

Between hackers, scammers, big tech and big brother, someone is always collecting data on your personal online habits. That data is used to generate an online profile of who you are, what you do, where you go and maybe even if you can be trusted. Additionally that data is sold and shared and used to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year all without your permission.

Maybe you think this is a paranoid way of thinking. But this episode is an interview with privacy expert Glenn Meder. It will open the door for you to a very different world in which there is absolutely no privacy. However, Glenn is going to give us some great tips on how to opt out of this privacy invasion simply because what we do, who we communication with and where we go really should be our personal business.

I hope you will join me for this eye-opening episode 190 How to Maintain Your Internet Privacy and Freedom.

Summary

This podcast episode features an interview with Glenn Meder, a privacy expert and the founder of the Privacy Academy. The discussion revolves around the importance of internet privacy and freedom, and how various entities such as governments, businesses, and big tech companies are infringing upon these rights through data collection, surveillance, and censorship. Glenn explains the potential dangers of centralized data systems, digital IDs, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), and social credit systems, which could lead to increased control and manipulation of individuals. He emphasizes the need to protect privacy and sovereignty by opting out of these systems and using tools and habits that prevent data collection. The episode promotes an upcoming webinar hosted by Glenn, where he will provide practical steps for maintaining online privacy and freedom.
Chapters

Introduction and Guest Background

The host, Patrick, introduces the episode's topic of internet privacy and freedom, and welcomes the guest, Glenn Meder, a privacy expert and the founder of the Privacy Academy. Glenn is described as someone who actively speaks out against issues like central bank digital currencies, social credit systems, digital IDs, and vaccine passports, with the goal of empowering people to exit the surveillance state and reclaim their freedoms.

The Importance of Privacy

Glenn and Patrick discuss the importance of privacy and how it has been the default state for humans throughout history. They highlight the contrast between the past, where conversations were inherently private, and the present, where technology has enabled widespread data collection and surveillance. Glenn emphasizes that privacy should be the default, and that individuals have the right to live their lives without intrusion or judgment.

Data Collection and Surveillance

The discussion delves into the various entities that collect data and engage in surveillance, including governments, businesses, and big tech companies like Google. Glenn provides examples of how these entities gather and use personal data, such as Google's ability to influence elections through search results and targeted advertising. He also discusses the concept of "surveillance capitalism," where companies profit from selling user data.

Digital IDs, CBDCs, and Social Credit Systems
Glenn explains the potential dangers of digital IDs, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), and social credit systems. He describes how these systems could lead to increased control and manipulation of individuals, with CBDCs enabling programmable money and social credit systems rating individuals based on their behaviors and beliefs. Glenn warns that these systems could result in a loss of freedom and sovereignty, with the government and corporations having the power to penalize or reward individuals based on their actions.

Opting Out and Protecting Privacy

Despite the concerning developments, Glenn emphasizes that individuals can opt out of these systems and protect their privacy. He suggests using tools and developing habits that prevent data collection, such as using privacy-focused browsers like Brave. Glenn also mentions an upcoming webinar he is hosting on July 11th, where he will provide more information and practical steps for maintaining online privacy and freedom.

Action Items

Download and use the Brave browser as the default browser, and set Brave search as the default search engine to avoid data collection by Google Chrome and Google.com
Attend Glenn Meder's webinar on July 11th at 11 AM Central Time to learn more about opting out of the surveillance state and protecting online privacy and freedom
Develop habits and use tools to prevent data collection by entities like hackers, scammers, big tech, and governments
Be aware of the potential dangers of centralized data systems, digital IDs, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), and social credit systems, and take steps to protect personal sovereignty and freedom

All right, folks, welcome back to the Adventures in Sustainable Living podcast, and this is your host, Patrick, and this is episode 185, which is called How to Protect Your Internet Privacy and Freedom.

Now I do have a very, very special guest today, and we're going to introduce him here in just a minute. And now, as you know, the big focus of my podcast and blog is Off -Grid Living and Sustainable Living, but this episode is going to, at first, seem as if it's a major divergence from what I typically discuss.

But as you know, I produce episodes that sometimes focus on targeted social issues, and this is going to be one of those times. And I think the underlying foundation of everything I do is to give people the knowledge and skills to be self -sufficient, to live sustainably, and to create and maintain a lifestyle that is in line with your personal values.

And a big part of that is having the right and the freedom to live the way you want. But as you will see in this episode, and as my guest is going to introduce this topic, there is a significant behind -the -scenes effort to take away that personal freedom and our right to privacy, and in my opinion, to limit the type of lifestyle we can produce for ourselves.

So that being said, I have a very knowledgeable privacy expert today and a freedom fighter on the show, someone who speaks out continuously about our freedoms. And he has been writing about privacy and freedom for the last 10 years.

He is the founder of the Privacy Academy, and his name is Glenn Meder. Glenn actively speaks out against various topics such as central bank digital currency, social credit systems, digital IDs, and vaccine passports.

And Glenn's goal is to empower as many people as possible to exit this surveillance state and reclaim our given freedoms. So with that being said, I want to welcome Glenn Meder of the Privacy Academy.

Good morning, Glenn. Good morning, how are you? Thank you for having me on. Oh, you're quite welcome. Since the beginning of our interaction over the last couple of months, that's culminated in this episode, I have to say, I've learned some very interesting things. I'm really excited to have you on the show, because I think you're gonna provide some very valuable, impactful information. So I'm happy with that. So- I hope so, yep. Well, you know, I kind of think, You know, I think the internet's been available to the public for what, 30 years, maybe.

Yeah. I mean, the start of it was 50 years ago, emails about 50 years old now, which is amazing. I mean, people don't think about email is like really even started before the internet, uh, but it was, it's one of the oldest protocols out there.

And that's one of the reasons that email is, I don't know, I think there's like 4 .5 billion people using email right now. So that's something we don't think about. But yeah, I mean, it's been around for quite a while now already.

So before that, you know, it was really just telephone communications, meaning land lines or fax machines, postal service, or, you know, face -to -face conversations. So in essence, we had all the privacy we wanted at that point in time.

And, you know, it's, as you know, it's illegal for someone to go to your mailbox and open your mail, but yet our privacy is invaded every single day. You know, would you agree with that? And I think, uh, it's an interesting point to start with, because if you look at all of human history, up until very recently, we do have privacy.

I mean, if we talk to somebody, we talk to them face -to -face and those conversations are private. They've always been private. Privacy has been the default that the human, that humans have always lived with, is we have a certain measure of privacy.

And privacy, when we go to that level, is very simple. You know, okay, close the bathroom door for privacy, close the curtains at night for privacy, talk to people face -to -face and those conversations are private.

And there's no way that someone could listen on those for thousands of years, you know. But now, now we live in this new time, that technology is everywhere. And most people have no idea how insidious it is and how deceptive the companies are and the governments are in spying on us.

And it's, it's something that we don't really have an instinctual awareness of. You know, we're still instinctually just think about, okay, let's close the curtains at night or whatever. But what about that webcam on my computer?

I turn off the computer, is that webcam still on? I mean, I think it's off, but is it really off? I mean, is my AdWords known and showed us. 12 years ago, that the NSA had the ability to turn on cameras and mics without our knowledge without the little light coming on by the camera 12 years ago, they were, they were doing that.

They were doing that for probably 10 years or more even before that, but we knew about it 12 years ago. So, but then there's all of these other interactions with our phones and with our emails and with our communications and everything.

I mean, there's just so many ways that we open ourselves up to privacy in fractions now. And yeah, so I think, and one of the one of the deceitful things that they try to do is, oh, well, don't, you know, the only people that worry about privacy are the people that are doing things wrong.

Well, we've got to kind of change the narrative on that is it's privacy has always been the default, it should be the default. Our lives are our lives. What I say to my spouse is my business, what I say to anyone is my business.

So I think, I think that's gotta be the starting point. You know, I remember a time many years ago when I did not even have an email account. And, you know, and as you and Eric, well now I have this little homestead literally out in the middle of the forest and I'm off grid and the only connection I have to the grid when I'm at home is my satellite internet and I plug it in when I want it and I just unplug it when I don't.

But you know, you have to admit, and this is how I, I think most people view the technology today is that it produces a huge convenience, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you can get online and you can order something that's on your doorstep tomorrow.

You don't even have to leave home anymore. You don't even have to walk into the supermarket anymore. Because you can get on order things, deliver to your vehicle, and off you go. But that convenience has come at a tremendous price.

And you know even when I, and I'm not nearly on the level that you are, but when you know I tend to be a very private person that has to do with a little bit to do with how I live the way I do, but when I talk about personal privacy issues, the very first thing people say to me is, well I don't have anything to hide, so why should I be worried?

So why should we worry about this issue? Yeah, yeah, and that is, you know, like I was saying, that is the default that we've been programmed to believe is I'm not doing anything wrong, so why should I worry about privacy?

But like I said, it should be the default. Privacy should be the default. We have rights to live our lives as we see fit, without any intrusion, without any privacy. We're innocent until proven guilty.

That means that they can't spy on us. The government or anyone shouldn't be able to spy on us without justifiable means that they have to go to the court and get a subpoena for all of that stuff. So there's a legal process that, okay, if I am suspected of a very blatant, whatever illegal stuff, okay, well, maybe there's a justification there, but that shouldn't be just across the board.

They should not be spying on us across the board, and they are. And, you know, the governments around the world are moving. I think, I don't know really your audience all that well, but I think you would agree with me that the governments around the world are moving to tyranny.

There is definitely a clear path, or they have definitely been moving in that way. They want to crush freedom of speech. I mean, that is not a conspiracy theory. That is a stated goal of basically all governments around the world now is they want to get rid of misinformation and disinformation, which is their code word for crushing freedom of speech.

They're working with government or they're working with big tech, the colluding with big tech to steal our data. So there is a lot of this going on. And really, the danger is, one of the things I always say is, information is power, which everyone's always heard.

But what it comes down to is when they have... information about you, they have power over you. And that is a very real thing they do. And, and we can look at some very clear examples of this, let's say, let's take a look at Google.

So there's a scientist out there, his name is Dr. Robert Epstein. And he has done countless studies on Google's power to impact elections. And I'll just give you a quick, quick insight into this. So basically, Google is very good at being our gatekeeper for information.

And so, you know, if people want to Google something, Google is so good at it, they that people typically just, I think 50% of the time, they choose the top two results that Google gives us 90% of the time they choose the first something on the first page, which is the first 10 items.

So That shows you that Google has tremendous power as that gateway for information. So what Robert Epstein did, Dr. Epstein did, is he tested how high -ranked items impact people's views on things. And we know that high -ranked things are good for business.

I mean, that's the whole SEO thing. That's the whole thing about Google Ads. Everything is if somebody searches for something and it pops up, they're going to click on it. So what he did is he did a search, he did a test to basically say, how does this affect elections?

And so he did some very detailed tests of, if you search for a candidate, what are the first few things that show up? And they can control people's opinions about those candidates by those top things that show up.

And he was actually able to show that just by controlling what comes up first in a search, it can change people's views by up to 48 .5%. And this is even on people with pretty strong opinions about their political candidate, and it can change their opinion about that.

And what he tested is only like a one -time thing, not a constant barrage of this. So he showed that Google has tremendous power over elections, and he proved this globally. He did this study in India.

He did it on local elections, national elections, and Google's power to control information is amazing. So so I just talked to you about that one thing, which is how those what comes up first in the search.

There's other tools they have to and another one is auto suggest where you start typing something in and then it shows you some what it thinks you're typing in. Right. Right. And what you think is okay, well, that's what most people are typing in.

But that's not what it is. Those are, that's Google trying to push you in certain directions. That alone, they've studied that and they see that has tremendous impact on elections also. But the biggest tool that Google has and we saw this with COVID was censorship.

They can censor results and and censor people's viewpoints or other or whatever viewpoints they want to censor. And, you know, the people that are being censored or the people that are on the side of being censored.

are aware of it to some degree. The people that are not on that side have no idea that the censorship is going on. If you look at the COVID thing, people that believed in, believed the government, believed all of the stuff, they had no idea that there was censorship going on, on the other side.

And you talk to people and it's like, what are you talking about? I don't know, there's any censorship going on. There was tons of censorship going on. And so, so anyway, that's just to show you the power that Google has.

And so they do have real power. I guess that's my point is this, this is real power that they have. So when I, when someone brings up the topic of censorship to me, and maybe this is a little old school, but you know, I always think of, you know, I don't really, honestly, I've not watched network television in probably 20 years, not longer.

And I don't really pay attention to the news media. But the only reason I do is to get some general idea of what's going on in the world, because I like to travel, of course. When I think of censorship, you know, my girlfriend's son, I was who's now 20, and he was 15 or 16.

I was telling him, I said, if you think about it, you search news media of all of the newsworthy things that go on in the world, who decides what you hear? Because someone does. Yeah. And I think, and again, you know, I just look at only news media, and maybe that's kind of an old school view.

But in a sense, that is censorship. And much along the same lines of what you're talking about, although it never really occurred to me that Google was censoring information, or at least directing it to what people People see because you're right and I do the same thing.

I search something and I Look at things that are on the first page. I do that all the time Yep So yeah, and oh, I'm sorry. Go. No, go ahead. Go ahead Well, I'm just gonna say, you know You I was gonna answer your question who is censoring it.

I mean one of the things that we know is When Elon Musk took over Twitter and he took the public it was a public company He took it private so he was able to see everything that's going on in there What he found was a whole team of FBI agents working in the company actively censoring people and He made this he he made this very clear he released a lot of documents to not Matt Taibbi who's an independent journalist who then released the the Twitter files and Actively censoring people,

I mean totally illegal, but you know, they don't care they're out of control. The government is out of control. They're absolutely doing this with Facebook, with Google, with YouTube. So, you know, in part, it is the government, the CIA, all of these people that are doing censorship, but there's also these companies are full of activist people, you know, with, with very radical views.

And they, they don't want, you know, these are the kids that grew up and they want safe spaces and they don't, you know, the colleges give them these safe spaces where they don't have to hear what they don't want to hear.

And if, if you can, if you say something they don't want to hear, that's considered like verbal violence and you know, ridiculous stuff like that. These are the people that are in charge of these companies.

Now, these are the people that are working at these companies. So yeah, it's, so who's doing the censorship? I would say it's, it's, it's governments that, that are turning tyrannical. And it is also these people, these activists, people that want their views out there and they want to silence all other views.

And it is, it is a very, it is a serious problem. I would say freedom of speech is the fundamental thing that we have to have. We have to have freedom of speech. And that's one of the tenants that we live by, but it's also privacy.

We need to be able to speak to each other without fear of someone looking over our shoulder, without fear, without fear of somebody listening to us or judging us or marking us for some kind of, you know, punitive action in some future date or putting us on a list somewhere or whatever.

We have to be able to Uh, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we have to feel totally confident that we can do that. And so you can, so one of the things that I do with privacy academy is I do get political because a lot of it is political, a lot of it is government oriented.

I think the government is really the big thing we have to worry about, but there's good news too. There are things that we can do to stop this flow of data from us to them. And so that's, you know, I don't want to bring things down without also, you know, given the good side of, you know, there are things that you can do to stop the flow of data that they are trying to get from you.

You know, interestingly enough, are you familiar with the TED platform? Yep. I subscribe to their platform because they always have It seems to me you know objective views people just offering different opinions and so forth and it's a lot of fun stuff You know, that's what I do instead of Network news, but anyway, I stumbled across the interview with Edward Snowden the other day I was a 30 minute interview and is really quite interesting and The inter the person interviewing him posed the same question to him,

you know commonly people say I Don't have not doing anything wrong. So I don't have to even worry about so why should I worry about this and his point was You know, you're giving up your rights Because you think you're not going to need them But you never know how someone is going to collect all this data on you and at some point in time in the future construe where you went what you were doing and who you're with in some off -handed way to perhaps Accuse you of something that you weren't really doing in the first place Yeah,

so and he was it was a very interesting interview. It was it was 30 minutes long, but But anyway one one question. I think some people are Confused we're talking about internet privacy, but I think there is a fundamental difference between internet privacy and internet Security, but I think people are going to be confused about that So what's in it?

What is the difference there? Yeah, it's a it's a very good point. There is a difference between internet privacy and internet security. So for example, Google actually makes very secure products, so like Google Pixel and all of those things there are some some security features that they put in there I mean if you have a Google account, you can lock it down with a With a YubiKey or something like that So they do make it secure,

but it's absolutely not private. So Gmail, for example, Gmail, all the employees, or I don't know about all of them, but many employees at Gmail can look through your inbox. They, not only that, but they let hundreds of other developers scan your inboxes at Gmail.

So you have no privacy at all with Google. Another example of security is online passwords. So if you have a password manager, which is a very important tool that people should use, that is really important for locking down security.

And you have to have to practice really good password management skills. You have to have good habits. You like, for example, every site that you go to, you need to have a long, complex, unique password.

And there are different ways that you can do that. You can... you can write it down on a piece of paper. If you can keep that piece of paper secure, a lot of people just use the built -in password manager that comes with their browser, but that's definitely not something that we recommend.

It is convenient to do that, but those built -in browser password managers are not nearly as secure as they need to be. What most people do is they say, well, you know, they kind of come up with maybe an algorithm that they use that they can remember, but it changes a little bit.

So their password changes a little bit for each site that they're on, but that, you know, computers, hackers are so, they can figure out these algorithms so easily. It's just like using the same password on every site.

So obviously the worst thing you could do is use the same password on every site. But if you had like an algorithm, let's say you had like, you had a word like blue, blue j, and then I'm gonna put the first three letters of the site I'm on in front of blue j, then I'm gonna put a five, and then I'm gonna write blue j, and then I'm gonna say the, the second and the fifth letter from the site is what's behind the blue j.

So that would be my password. So that's an algorithm. And so people do those kinds of things where it's like, okay, I'm kind of using the same password, but it changes for every site that I go on. But those are very easy for hackers to guess now because I'm kind of going off on a tangent here, I think.

But if you go, if you look at what hackers do, what they do is they breach websites. So you'll hear, okay, target was breached. AT &T was breached. A lot of the different, Sony, Marriott, all of these sites get breached.

But it's not, when a hacker hacks into target to breach the database, it's not targets information they're after. It's the customer's database. It's the customer database they're after. So they're after your information.

And so when they steal that database, then they then go onto the dark web, sell that database to other hacker groups. Other hacker groups buy them up because they want every database they can because they want to pull it all together and match your information from this site and that site and that site.

And they want to pull it together so they have a bigger picture of you. And the reason they do that is because the whole is worth more than the parts. Because if they can see the, Okay, what password are you using on each site?

And then they can see the pattern that you use for your passwords. Is it strong? Is it unique? Is it complex? Do you know what you're doing with passwords? Or are you doing like the same password on every site?

Are you doing an algorithm which is very easy for computers to figure out? Those are the type of things that they learn from these data breaches, and they can pull it all together, and they then use your information against you.

And so anyway, that's the difference between privacy and security, I think. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. You know, what I think about, you know, when we just started discussing this webinar, you know, I've done a little bit of reading, and like I said before, I'm not on nearly the level that you are, and yet some of the basic information that I find is really rather concerning.

So the government is constantly collecting data on us, businesses are constantly collecting data on us, big tech, you know, giant e -commerce sites such as Amazon, for example, and social media platforms.

And then there's GPS in our phones, GPS in our vehicles, so people are physically tracked, and they're virtually tracked. So I look at that, and I think all of this massive amounts of data can be collected on any one person to essentially create a virtual avatar of who you are, what you do, where you go, and maybe even whether or not you can be trusted.

And then that information can turn around and potentially be used against you and some knows how. So that's kind of my impression of the big picture. Yeah, so let's start on the commercial side first.

So let's say you go into Walgreens, they always want your phone number, right? So you're even if you're paying with cash, they want your phone number, right? Why do they want your phone number? Because if you sign up for the rewards program, which what you get maybe a couple bucks a month, or something, I mean, it's just like ridiculous, right?

But but what are they doing with that? What they're doing with that is they're keeping track of every single thing you purchase. And they're selling that data to Google and, and, and who knows who who evolves and they are tying it to you specifically.

If you look at Albertson's grocery store, Albertson's grocery store makes almost a billion dollars a year just by selling your data. that's, that's incredible, you know. So there's the whole surveillance capitalism side of things.

But then there's the more dangerous side, which is the government, what is happening with the government, because what you just said with, you know, they're trying to centralize data. That's exactly right.

Centralization is very bad. So when you're talking about government, centralization of power is always very bad. A centralization of information is very bad. And this is why governments are pushing this digital ID.

And they are pushing it. Every country is pushing this digital ID, and they're pushing it hard. And it started with the whole vaccine passport thing. Okay, let's get you. Let's get you having a vaccine passport, you need this vaccine passport to get into any venues or whatever, because we need to see that you're vaccinated, all that stuff.

There are real reason for that is they want you to, they want a centralized database for you. And so they want to have when the government has centralized data about you, again, it can be used against you.

The central bank digital currency, which is what they're creating is a different, they're redoing money, it's not money, it's currency. And it's, and they're redoing the whole financial structure. I mean, this is a real ground, ground up, from the ground up, they're building this thing to replace what we have now.

And it is all about total surveillance. So the first thing about central bank digital currency is they will know every single thing that you do, every single payment that you make, then they will know who you pay, who you donate to all of that stuff.

But it is also so programmable. And this is what most people don't understand about CBDCs. They just think, okay, central bank digital currency, well, Visa's digital, right? Mastercard is digital. So what's the difference?

It's just digital. No, this is totally different, because this is programmable money. And that is very important, because what they're moving towards is a social, social credit system, like what they have in China.

And I'll just, I'll just go on this tangent here for a minute here. So in China, we they have the social credit system, which is, they're giving is based off of the financial system, where we have that is in the in the US and in the West, where people get financial scores based on you know, paying off debts and all that stuff.

But the social credit score takes it a lot further, every single thing that you do is in that social credit score. It includes financial, but it also includes your behaviors. Are you playing in this what they do in China?

Are you playing more than 12 hours of video games a month? Are you properly are you visiting your parents at least once a month? Are you? Do people say good things about you in your neighborhood or whatever?

And there's, there's all of these different things that they rate you on, but then they also take it off for, okay, did you not pick up after your dog? Because it's on camera, we can, the camera can see it now.

Did you jaywalk? Did you? Are you playing more than 12 hours a month of video games, whatever? Are you buying alcohol, an excessive, an excessive amount of alcohol? But then you get into the really bad things like, okay, you posted something against the government on social media, or you're an investigative journalist, investigating corruption in the government.

Those things are really bad. They can, they can really affect your score negatively. If your score goes, so anyway, you get this social credit score. And if your score goes low enough, then you'll start getting daily, weekly or daily visits from the government to, to kind of harass you and to show you how to get your score up and you have to do this.

You can in China, they have these digital billboards in the community that either highlight people with good scores or shame people with low scores. So if you're in, if you're in China and your, your social credit score goes low enough, you're not going to be able to buy a plane ticket.

If it goes lower, you're not going to be able to buy a train ticket, a bus ticket, and then you're not going to be able to and rent a hotel, all that stuff. And they have a stated goal of if you are a good citizen, then you are as free as a bird.

If you are a bad citizen, then you can't move an inch. And so that's one of the ways they do it. But it's geographic isolation, it's social isolation, and it's financial isolation. So they prevent you from getting a good job.

Socially, they prevent you from getting your kids into a good school if you're what they call a bad citizen, which is gonna pit husband against wife, and all of that stuff. Now, in the US and in the West, they're not gonna be able to do that.

They're not gonna be able to say, okay, well, you have to be a good citizen, and we're gonna tell you whether you're a good citizen or not. But what they're doing is they're basing it on... ideological things like carbon credit score.

And so they're going to give us a carbon credit score that we have to abide by to save the planet and all that stuff. And so if you look on Google Flights right now, each flight has a carbon credit score next to it.

There's a reason for that. That's not just to make us aware that is part of the system that they already have built, but they haven't implemented yet. The reason they're pushing us towards electric cars is because they have control over this electric car.

So if our carbon score goes, if we use too much carbon this month, then maybe next month our electric car will only charge 50 percent full. It won't charge 100 percent full. Maybe it will have a limited range on it or something like that.

Those are controllable cars. That's why they do it. But it will also be social things like hate crimes. If you do a hate crime like posting on social media, something against trans people or something like that, you don't think that Leah Thomas should be swimming against women.

That would be hate crime and that would go against your score. But the point I was getting at is the central bank digital currency will be programmable, meaning that they will be able to penalize us instantaneously or reward us instantaneously and basically train us like a dog.

That's really where it's going to. I think people hear this and they say, well, I would never put up with that. But look at what we put up with in COVID, where there was absolutely two tier society. If you were Vax, you could go to the grocery store, you could go to in some in some.

places, this was worse than others. But in Canada, for example, if you were unvaxed, you couldn't get on trains, you couldn't travel around the country. In certain like California, you couldn't go to venues, you couldn't go to Ticketmaster, couldn't go to some concerts, all of these things that is putting this the pieces in place.

And I think that was a psychological preparation for us being divided. And almost a caste system. And that's, that's one of the things that happens with the social credit system is, you're going to, you're going to be divided.

And that's what they do is, is it but it's all about really control. And really, in a way, it's about enslaving humanity is what it is. So anyway, I don't want to get I don't want to seem too dark with this.

But I think it's important to be aware of what is happening. This is a global movement. It is happening in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, all throughout Europe. They're trying to do it in the US. 190 countries around the world are doing central bank digital currencies right now.

They're trying to push digital IDs. They're trying to push, you know, censorship and crushing freedom of speech. All of these things are coming together in a way that we need to protect ourselves from.

And so that's my mission is to talk about freedom, liberty, and our need to be private. And, you know, just stop playing their games. We can opt out of their system. We can do things. We can use tools that stop spying on us.

So I know that was a long rant, so sorry about that. No, but you bring up a lot of good points. And, you know, I guess how I live, for example, is very different than how most people live. But I do because I want to because I have a very independent lifestyle.

But I'm still at the same time very well connected digitally. And you are even during the course of this podcast episode teaching me some things that I obviously need to be aware of. But that also, you know, just kind of maybe something's up a little bit.

You know, we've touched on a lot of things, digital IDs, surveillance data collection from the government, central bank digital currencies, big tech such as Google constantly collecting data on us. And all of this stuff being aggregated and dumped into this social.

What is it? You call it a social credit? Social credit system. social credit system, okay, to make us behave better, I guess. And to control us, yeah. But you've also said something very important. We can opt out of that.

And I think, as you have shared with me earlier, that you have an upcoming webinar that will give people some further information. So let's talk about that for a minute. When is that going to happen, and how can people attend this webinar, and where can they go to find further information?

Yeah, so that is going to be on January 11th, 11 a .m. Central Time. And the link, you know, we'll send you out the link so you can include it with the podcast. No, you said... I don't mean to interrupt you said January 11th, but oh, sorry, July, July 11th.

Okay. Okay, go ahead. Sorry, July 11 at 11am in the morning Central Time. And yeah, we'll provide you with the link. And really what we want to do is it isn't it's an education class on some thing key things that you can do to opt out of, of the surveillance state.

And so, so it is a very valuable lesson. I think this is really the issue of our time, all of the stuff that they are building is based on the foundation of surveillance. That's the basis that they build all of the stuff on and so we can take that away from them.

And I think it's essential that we do so. Because, you know, if we go back if if I can go back to the first question that you asked me of why is privacy so important. Based on what I just said what I've said today.

Sorry, I'm getting a phone call here I got to turn this off. Okay, sorry about that. So if I can go back to what we will the question that you first asked me today is why should people care about privacy.

I've given some background into the answer that I have for you, but it goes back to what I said earlier, information is power. And when they have information about you they have power over you. That is real power that they have over us.

And if you are giving them that information and you're allowing them to take that your information, you're giving them power over you. And I think it's important that we keep our sovereignty and keep our power ourselves.

And an interesting point about that, you know, this, you know, the, the, the, the data that you have that they have about you being used against you, if you look at the threats online, there are three threats.

So, so there's hackers and scammers, which is one threat, there's big tag, and there's big brother. And all three of those threats are doing the same thing. They're hackers and scammers go out and they do these data breaches and they try to compile a profile on us.

And then they try to use that data against us. Big tech creates these shiny object things that we use like Chrome browser, google .com, Android operating system, Apple has their own, Microsoft has their own, they're trying to gain that data so they can use it against us.

Government is trying to create be digital IDs, centralize the data. They're trying to do the central bank digital currencies, which will give them total information, total surveillance about our financial activities.

They all want our data and they're all, they all want to use that data against us. So that's why it's important to understand this and then to take the steps to stop giving that data to them. So yeah, that's really what we want to talk about on July 11th.

But just looking even in my very basic research, if you really want to take that sort of a position, it seems like it's a process, meaning there's multiple steps that you're going to have to take. Absolutely.

So what is, if someone were to do one thing today, what would you recommend that they do? One thing, that's good. Okay, so to answer your question, you're right. It is not just one thing. I mean, there's a lot of things to, there's a lot of things that you have to do.

But let's, let's just say one thing. So one thing I would say is, whatever browser you're using, change it to the Brave browser. So, so most people are using the Chrome browser, which is Google, or they're using Safari or Edge or even Firefox.

But what we want to do is we want to change it to the Brave browser. So just go to brave .com and download that, make that your default browser. And also when you make it your default browser, just go into the search engine and make sure that Brave, because Brave makes a browser, but they also make a search engine.

So once you download the browser, go and the settings and just check the search engine and just make sure that the search engine is set for brave. And if you do that, you've just killed two birds with one stone because you have gotten away from Google Chrome, which is a Trojan horse that is specifically designed to steal your data.

That's the intended purpose of it. And you're getting away from Google .com as your search engine, which is also a Trojan horse, which is designed to spy on you and get your data. And it records every search you've ever done.

So you want to get away from Google .com. So by getting the brave browser and the using brave search, you've killed two birds with one stone. So what you've done here is actually give people one little tool.

It's actually a very significant tool. So as a first step. So as I always like, you know, when I talk about, you know, of course, I focus on sustainable living and self -sufficient living and, you know, I always tell people this is a, this is a process.

It is a lifestyle choice and it sounds like maintaining your digital privacy and your, your internet freedom. It's a process. So what you've talked about is you changing your browser and that's just one tool.

So, and I would think that during the course of your upcoming webinar, you're going to talk about multiple other tools. Yeah, that's, that's exactly right. We'll, we'll, we'll cover five things that you can do right now to, to opt out of the system.

But what you're saying is exactly right. It comes down to tools. There's, there's tools, but there's also habits. There's also ways that you need to look at things and it is a process. You're exactly right.

It is not just like flipping a switch and okay, now I'm private. It is there, there is stuff to learn. There is, there is quite a bit to learn. So yeah, but we try to make it fun. We try to make it easy.

And that is coming up to be clear. July 11th. Yep. 11 AM, you said 11 AM central time. Yep. And you're going to send me a link to the page where folks can go and sign up and get some information about the webinar.

Yep, absolutely. Oh, and I can also put that in the recorded audio and also of course in the transcript where people can go to my website and download that transcript. So anyway, Glenn, we've talked about a lot, a lot of things here.

Is there any couple of last comments you want to make just in summary to, I don't know, perhaps. encourage people to attend the webinar. Yeah, I mean, I, I hope the, uh, the podcast today kind of opened your eyes.

It is a new world. I mean, it's not like it was when we were young and, but, but, you know, we still think that way. We still think that we're living kind of privately, but we are not. I mean, they are actively spying on us and we just have to up our game, really.

And we've got to start thinking about things differently. We've got to just realize this new world that we're in. There are ways that we can protect ourselves, but we have to do it from a place of being aware of what's going on and have having the knowledge to, to protect ourselves, but also understand that there's some bad guys out there and there's, there's hackers and scammers and there's big tech and there's big brother and none of them are your friend

There's different ways to protect yourself from each but i hope you do come i hope you come to the webinar and learn what you can so anyway once again um that is July 11th 11 a .m central time and this is Glenn Meder is a privacy expert who has provided us with a tremendous amount of valuable information folks and again the link to the upcoming webinar will be in the transcript of this episode as well as the audio so i think uh folks it's probably pretty important that you join this webinar at least for some further information

S0 for now we're going to sign off on this podcast episode and say goodbye to glenn for now thank you very much glenn and uh i will talk to you very soon

Well folks i hope that you are still with me i know that this podcast has been rather lengthy but i also think that glenn provided some very valuable information here and i totally agree with glenn that we truly live in a completely different world these days and as we do more and more things online and more and more business through the internet we really have to do to take some extra steps to protect our privacy and as glenn pointed out there's hackers and scammers and big tech and big brother all collecting information on you about your personal behavior and your personal habits online and if you want to really take some first steps to protect your privacy and freedom on the internet i would encourage you to attend Glen's upcoming webinar and that is going to be on July 11th 11 a .m.

Central Standard Time in the United States and you can register for that webinar at privacyacademy .com forward slash homesteading. Again the upcoming webinar is July 11th 11 a .m. Central Standard Time and you can register at privacy academy .com forward slash homesteading.

So I hope you'll attend that webinar. I know that I'm going to because a lot of things that were brought up here today were learning issues even for me. So for all of us I think it is important to maintain that little bit of privacy because we do live in a completely different world these days.

So, folks, this is Patrick and I'm going to sign off for now and I hope to see you on July 11th and have a great day.