WendyMcElroy.com
So...you are staying in the States Part VThis is the fifth in a series of posts investigating some of the strategies that those who choose to stay in the United States can use to maximize their personal freedom. I describe the real experiences of friends and acquaintances, whom I strip of identifiers and refer to only by number, as a way to illustrate the strategy and ground it in reality. Happily, I've had a very colorful circle of friends. And, yes, the past tense is deliberate as I do not and would not discuss strategies people I know are pursuing in the here and now out of deference for their privacy. Something that happened a decade or so ago in a venue far, far away...that's different. The other four posts can be accessed by clicking on the following links: Number 1, Number 2, Number 3, and Number 4.
#5 was an anarchist acquaintance who so organized his life around privacy that I never knew his real name. At some point well before we met, he had assumed one of the most common names in the phone book in order to become difficult to find unless he wished you to do so. Although he wrote and published within libertarianism, he always used a pen name. He died some while ago and (I was told) that his closest friend uncovered papers that listed his birth name, etc. Oddly enough, however, assuming a bland name is not the strategy I'm illustrating here.
Instead, I am spotlighting another story.
#5 was an anarchist acquaintance who so organized his life around privacy that I never knew his real name. At some point well before we met, he had assumed one of the most common names in the phone book in order to become difficult to find unless he wished you to do so. Although he wrote and published within libertarianism, he always used a pen name. He died some while ago and (I was told) that his closest friend uncovered papers that listed his birth name, etc. Oddly enough, however, assuming a bland name is not the strategy I'm illustrating here.
Instead, I am spotlighting another story.
One of the few episodes from his past that #5 spoke of freely was the time he spent in an Amish community in order to avoid being found by the police who sought him on drug charges -- possession, I believe. I am not clear on whether he had a former connection with the Amish -- e.g. through a relative -- or whether #5 talked his way into an arrangement of working and paying for board; he was a very persuasive man. #5 spoke highly of the Amish and with respect. I remember he marvelled about how the children seemed to be always smiling and laughing. The Amish provided him with a 'disconnect' from the manner in which police routinely locate people. For example, there were no phones, no computers and as few records as possible were registered with the authorities; it was also a community that actively avoided speaking to outsiders, especially outside authority. Not that the police targeted the Amish. Quite the contrary. Their community was far down a gravel road, off-the-path from where cop cars patrolled.
The lesson here is twofold:
1) as much as possible, disconnect from the means by which authorities find and monitor you. I don't expect people to give up their computers or phones BUT everyone can take steps like avoiding voter registration through which jury pools are selected. Everyone can neglect to update an address. Everyone can refuse to fill in more than is legally required on the highly intrusive forms with which government bombard us; don't fill out similar business forms at all; plead "fear of identity theft", instead.
2) moving to a rural area increases your privacy and, so, your freedom. Consider one example: we are becoming a surveillance society in which cameras constantly monitor public areas, from the streets you walk to subways to the stores you shop in, etc. My gravel road or the streets of the one-stoplight town in which I shop are among the last places in the world I expect a camera to be installed. This is not because authorities here value my privacy; it is because of how cost effective such an installation is not compared to one in a city.
The lesson here is twofold:
1) as much as possible, disconnect from the means by which authorities find and monitor you. I don't expect people to give up their computers or phones BUT everyone can take steps like avoiding voter registration through which jury pools are selected. Everyone can neglect to update an address. Everyone can refuse to fill in more than is legally required on the highly intrusive forms with which government bombard us; don't fill out similar business forms at all; plead "fear of identity theft", instead.
2) moving to a rural area increases your privacy and, so, your freedom. Consider one example: we are becoming a surveillance society in which cameras constantly monitor public areas, from the streets you walk to subways to the stores you shop in, etc. My gravel road or the streets of the one-stoplight town in which I shop are among the last places in the world I expect a camera to be installed. This is not because authorities here value my privacy; it is because of how cost effective such an installation is not compared to one in a city.
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