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The US Government’s official website, USA.gov, has plenty of advice to dish out on how people can protect their online privacy from spammers, corporations, and viruses. But it says nothing about how to keep Big Brother from snooping on you.

We now know, thanks to people like Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald that virtually our every online move is literally being watched, tracked, and databased by our own government.

But is there anything individuals can do to keep our communications private?

And, by even attempting privacy, do we draw suspicion to our online activity?

Is the government capable of breaking into secure communications like encryptions and third party proxy servers?

And, how would we even know if they are or aren’t capable?

GUEST: Sascha Meinrath, vice president of the New America Foundation and director of the Open Technology Institute

If you use Mozilla Thunderbird and Seamonkey you can use Enigmail to encrypt your email.

If you use Microsoft Outlook, click here for instructions on how to encrypt your emails.

An in-progress project for encrypting texts in Firefox is called Cryptocat.

Click here to read an article on CNET on how to encrypt your emails.

Click here for an article in PC World called How to protect your PC from Prism surveillance.

Click here to read an article on MacWorld called How to Encrypt Your Email.

Whispersystems offers secure communications for mobile phones.

Find out more about the LEAP Encryption Access Project which is working on a number of secure communications projects here: https://leap.se/en

Find out more about Sascha Meinrath’s project, the Open Technology Institute at www.opentechinstitute.org.