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Credit Cards: How to Pick a Winner
We live in a decidedly credit-centric culture. Whip out cash to pay for $200 in groceries and watch the funny looks from the other customers and the disgust from the clerk. It’s almost like they are upset they have to know how to count to run a cash register.
If someone doesn’t have a credit card, everyone wonders what’s wrong, and assumes they have terrible credit. That’s a lousy assumption to make, but it happens. For most of the last two years, I shunned credit cards as much as possible, preferring cash for my daily spending. Spending two years changing my spending habits has made me comfortable enough to use my cards again, both for the convenience and the rewards.
Having a decent card brings some advantages.
Credit cards legally provide fraud protection to consumers. Under U.S. federal law, you are not responsible for more than $50 of fraudulent charges. many card issuers have extended this to $0 liability, meaning you don’t pay a cent if your card is stolen. Trying getting that protection with a wallet full of cash.
The fraud protection makes it easier to shop online, which more people are doing every day. At this point, there is no product you can buy in person that you can’t get online, often cheaper. How would you order something without a credit card? Even the prepaid cards you can buy and fill at a store will often fail during an online transaction because there is no actual person or account associated with the card. The “name as it appears on the card” is a protective feature for the credit card processors and they dislike accepting cards without it.
If you’re going to use a credit card, you need to make a good choice on which credit card to get. There are a few things to check before you apply for a card.
Annual fee. Generally, I am opposed to getting any card with an annual fee, but sometimes, it’s worth it. If, for example, a card provides travel discounts and roadside assistance with its $65 annual fee, you can cancel AAA and save $75 per year. A good rewards plan can balance out the fee, too. I’m using a travel rewards card that has a 2% rewards plan. That’s 2% on every dollar spent, plus discounts on some travel purchases. In a few months, I’ve accumulated $500 of travel rewards for the $65 fee that was waived for the first year. The math works. A card that charges an annual fee without providing services worth several times that fee isn’t worth getting.
Interest rate. This should be a non-issue. You should be paying off you card completely every month. In a perfect world. In the real world, sometimes things come up. In my case, I was surprised with a medical bill for my son that was 4 times larger than my emergency fund. It went on the card. So far, I’ve only had to pay one month’s interest, and I don’t see the balance surviving another month, but it’s nice that I’m not paying a 20% interest rate. Unfortunately, as a response the CARD Act, the days of fixed rate 9.9% cards seems to be over.
Grace period. This is the amount of time you have when the credit card company isn’t charging you interest. Most cards offer a 20-25 day grace period, but still bill monthly. That means that you’ll be paying interest, even if you pay your bill on time. To be safe, you’ll need to either find a card that has a 30 day grace period, or pay your balance off every 15-20 days. Some of the horrible cards don’t offer a grace period of any length. Avoid those.
Activation fees. Avoid these. Always. There’s no card that charges an activation fee that’s worth getting. An activation fee is an early warning sign that you’ll be paying a $200 annual fee and 30% interest in addition to the $150 activation fee.
Other fees. What else does the card charge for? International transactions? ATM fees? Know what you’ll be paying.
Service. Some cards provide some stellar services, include concierge service, roadside assistance, and free travel services. Some of that can more than balance out the fees they charge. My card adds a year to the warranty of any electronics I buy with it, which is great.
Credit cards aren’t always evil, if you use them responsibly. Just be sure you know what you’re paying and what you’re getting.
What’s in your wallet?
Carnival of Personal Finance #307: The Silver Edition
This is the 307th Carnival of Personal Finance, the Silver Edition. As of 10:00 PM CDT last night, silver is at $43.76 per ounce. Three years ago, when I last bought silver, it was at $11.30. In honor of that, and inspired by my first editor’s pick below, I’m going to share some facts and history about silver.
The last time prices rose like this was in 1979, when the Hunt brothers bought or controlled close to 50% of the world’s silver. They managed it by leveraging their silver hoard. As they bought more, prices went up, increasing the value of their hoard, which they then used as collateral for more loans to buy more silver, which caused the prices to go up so they’d use it as collateral…. You get the idea. Prices went from $11 per ounce to $50 per ounce in less than a year, before the regulators figured out the game and changed the rules, bringing the whole thing crashing down. The resulting losses and lawsuits bankrupted the former billionaires within 10 years.
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Editor’s Picks:
First, we have a post from Squirrelers, Is There a Silver Bubble? How High Can Prices Go?. This post reminded me of not only the Hunt brothers story, but the small box of silver I own. Now, I’m debating taking it to a precious metals dealer and cashing out for 400% of my purchase price.
Suba from Wealth Informatics brought Never Pay full price : How to save 10-50% on every purchase. This was entirely new to me, which surprised me. I see a lot of ideas presented in new ways, but rarely see something I know absolutely nothing about.
If you’ve got legal papers you need to fill out, or questions you need answered, you could do far worse than to start with the site Jeff Rose from Good Financial Cents gives us with 7 Free and Cheap Online Legal Resources. If you think you don’t need the resources, that means you a complete estate plan, right? You have a will?
Saving
Dimes, quarters, and half-dollars were 90% silver until 1964. Half-dollars continued to be 40% silver until 1971. At that time, the government tightly controlled the price of silver and kept it at $1.29 per ounce so the face value of the coins matched the value of silver they contained. Today, a supply of 90% silver coins with a face value of $5 can be had for the bargain price of $173.74.
Fanny from Living Richly on a Budget – Personal Budget Blog presents How to Build the Crucial $1,000 Emergency Fund, and says, “How do you finance unexpected personal expenses, such as car repairs, medical visits, home maintenance repairs, etc? The most effective way to finance these expenses is through a personal emergency fund.”
Flexo from ConsumerismCommentary presents Silent Inflation is Destroying Your Net Worth, and says, “Inflation continues to deflate individuals net worth and there are no signs of it getting any better.”
Adam Piplica from Magical Penny presents Avoid Hitting the Rocks of Financial Ruin, and says, “This post draws on a famous story in Homer’s Oddessey how a captain made it safely passed the Sirens because he had protected himself from making a poor short-term decision. It’s exactly the same thing you have to do if you want to grow your pennies.”
Clint from Accumulating Money presents Baby-Boomer Generation Must Get Serious About Planning for Retirement, and says, “The “Baby-Boomer” generation has undergone two severe business-cycle reversals in the past ten years alone. Many of these fifty and sixty year-olds are now facing a daunting task – how do you rebuild your net worth in so short a remaining time period?”
Jason from One Money Design presents Planting a Garden to Save Money, and says, “As Spring is here, planting a garden is a great way to help feed your family and save some money at the same time.”
Career
Silver is almost always found with lead. Through most of history, mining silver meant mining lead and breathing lead dust. In the ancient world, silver miners had a life span of about 3 years, so free men refused the job. This was a slave occupation.
Crystal from Budgeting in the Fun Stuff presents Job Experience – Don’t Rock The Boat, and says, “Being young and ambitious may seem like the best thing in the world but knowing your audience and environment is very important. You don’t want to come off as the young new hothead…here’s a story all about exactly that.”
Well Heeled Blog from Well Heeled Blog presents 5 Ways to Spend Your Raise, and says, “Congratulations, you got a raise! Now what? Now, what to do about this extra money? No matter what, don’t want to fritter this raise away. Here are 5 ways for the extra money to work hard for you. ”
Kathryn @ Financial Highway from Financial Highway presents 30 Common Interview Questions and How to Answer Them, and says, “This guide not only tells you what the interview questions are but also provides insight into what the interviewer is really asking and what types of answers will help you get the job.”
Credit
Around 500 BC, Athenians discovered a huge silver mine on land belonging the city-state. This find was used to finance building their first effective navy, which catapulted them to the heights of power they achieved.
Craig Ford from Money Help for Christians presents Best Ways to Maximize Cash, Credit Card, and Debit Card Rewards, and says, “How to maximize your credit cards or debit card rewards.”
Tim Chen from NerdWallet Credit Card Watch presents Premium Credit Cards: The Value Beyond the Cost, and says, “A premium credit card is a step above your average card: better rewards and extra perks offered at, well, a premium. These exclusive credit cards come with additional goodies like lounge access and free plane tickets, as well as hefty annual fees.”
Kevin (for Moolanomy) from Moolanomy presents How to Avoid Credit Cards and Credit Repair Scams, and says, “Credit cards don’t have to be a bad thing, but they definitely have their fair share of scams out there. Here’s how to avoid them.”
Real Estate
In World of Warcraft, silver is a rare spawn of tin. If you want to find silver, you should try mining tin. Over and over. (Source)
Mike from Green Panda Treehouse presents How Much Should We Spend on Housing?, and says, “How much is the right amount for housing costs?”
Ben from Money Smart Life presents How to Use a Mortgage Calculator to Compare Home Loans, and says, “A post about how to use a mortgage calculator to screen and compare the rates and costs of home loans.”
Frugality
The early discovery that water, wine, milk and vinegar stayed pure longer in silver vessels, led to its desirability as a container for long voyages. Herodotus wrote that Cyrus the Great, King of Persia, a man of vision who established a board of health and a medical dispensary for his citizens, had water drawn from a special stream, “boiled, and very many four wheeled wagons drawn by mules carry it in silver vessels, following the king wheresoever he goes at any time.” (Source)
Donna Freedman from Surviving and Thriving presents This isn’t your grandparents’ recession, and says, “When the going gets tough, it’s tempting to invoke our grandparents and their tribulations during the Great Depression. But some of their advice wouldn’t help us. ”
Glen Craig from Parenting Family Money presents Inexpensive (Cheap) Date Night Ideas for Parents, and says, “It’s tough getting out with the spouse when you have kids. With babysitting and the date it can get expensive. See some inexpensive date night ideas and how you can save on babysitting as well.”
Finance
From 1998 to 2009, Bernard von NotHaus marketed the Liberty Dollar as an alternative to U.S. government fiat currency. Liberty Dollars were made from silver and later, gold and copper. von NotHaus was later convicted of–among other things–counterfeiting coins, even though he only produced his own coinage and didn’t pretend it was the same thing.
N.W. Journey from Net Worth Journey presents What is Compound Interest?, and says, “A basic introduction to compound interest.”
Bret from Hope to Prosper presents Age 21: A Year of Change and Humility, and says, “The year I turned 21 was the most tumultuous of my life. In many ways, that one year shaped my life more than any other and determined the direction of my future.”
Economy
Colloidal silver is claimed to be a near-magical cure-all. Its proponents claim it has the ability to “benefit the immune system; kill disease-causing agents such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi; serve as an alternative to prescription antibiotics; or treat diseases such as cancer, HIV/AIDS, diabetes, tuberculosis, syphilis, scarlet fever, shingles, herpes, pneumonia, and prostatitis (inflammation of the prostate).” Scientific evidence for any of this: none. (Source)
Money Beagle from Money Beagle presents The Economy Must Be Improving, and says, “I don’t need a government report to show me that the economy is improving; I look no further than the latest coupon offerings from local restaurants!”
Darwin’s Money from Darwin’s Money presents Stop Complaining About Gas Prices, and says, “Americans are complaining about prices at the pump. I say “Stop Complaining and Look in the Mirror”. Here are some very rational reasons and real solutions.”
Investing
The best method of storing silver is in bullet form. When the werewolves attack, none of us will have long to fight back.
Mike from The Dividend Guy Blog presents 7 Deadly Sins of Investments, and says, “Are you making these mistakes with investing?”
Mike Piper from Oblivious Investor presents Replacing Index Funds in Your Portfolio, and says, “For the most cost conscious of investors, it might make sense to build a portfolio of individual securities rather than index funds.”
RJ Weiss from Gen Y Wealth presents How to Convert a 401(k) to Traditional or Roth IRA, and says, “Reviewing your options with your 401(k) when leaving or changing jobs. More specifically, to look at the steps to convert your 401K(k) to an IRA, since this is most likely the optimal choice.”
Michael from DoughRoller presents How Half a Percent Can Ruin Your Retirement, and says, “Investing for retirement is crucial to securing your financial future. Make sure to find the best interest rates available, as even half a percent can ruin your retirement aspirations. ”
Money Management
I had a silver ring in my septum for almost 10 years and, in fact, still maintain the piercing, but it’s usually empty.
Cathy Moran from Money Health Central presents An Alternate Truth About Financial Literacy, and says, “Financial literacy is grounded in understanding bigger truths about money, not in acting on those truths.”
Kara from Frugal In My Forties presents Worst Money Lessons My Family Taught Me, and says, “My parents had great financial skills: Unfortunately they weren’t really great about passing them on to their children. These are the 4 big things that I think they should have done differently!”
Mike from The Financial Blogger presents Teaching Finance In High School, and says, “A look at getting finance across at the high school level.”
Eric from Narrow Bridge Finance presents How Your Insurance Rates are Calculated, and says, “Ever wonder how insurance companies determine your monthly rates? Find out what you need to know here.”
FMF from Free Money Finance presents How Millionaires Become Millionaires, and says, “Many people mistakenly think that most millionaires have their wealth handed to them from either their relatives or some stroke of luck (like winning the lottery, being gifted with amazing abilities/talent, etc.) This is completely false. Most people with over seven-figure wealth got it the old-fashioned way, they earned it.”
Matt Bell from Matt About Money presents Money Lessons From the Royal Wedding, and says, “Amid all the royal wedding hoopla, did you notice what Prince William and his fiancée, Kate Middleton, asked for in terms of wedding gifts? Since this is one couple that truly does have everything, they asked anyone wanting to get them a gift to consider making a donation instead. For all of us commoners, there are two lessons we can learn from the royal couple’s philanthropic mindset.”
Debt
Sterling silver is 92.5% silver and 7.5% other, usually copper. Pure silver is too soft for most applications. It is, however, the most optically reflective element.
Jacob Irwin from My Personal Finance Journey presents Helping A Friend Get Out of Debt – Part 3 – Cut Your Interest Rates In Half, and says, “A look at the steps my friend and I took to get his credit card interest rates lowered, and how you can too!”
Junior Boomer from Consumer Boomer presents Top 5 Bankruptcy Myths Dispelled For You, and says, “For those who have been considering bankruptcy, but are concerned about the overall impact it could have on their financial future, we are going to break a few myths.”
Other
Silver fulminate is an explosive, ionic, fulminic acid salt of silver. Yes, silver goes boom.
Echo from Boomer & Echo presents Assessing Your Estate Plan, and says, “Before making an appointment with your lawyer take some time to assess your situation and review your estate plan.”
Sustainable PF from Sustainable Personal Finance presents Eight Favourite Blogs, and says, “There are some awesome PF blogs out there and these are 8 you shouldn’t miss!”
Nicole from Nicole and Maggie: Grumpy Rumblings presents Dissecting an emergency room bill, and says, “Nicole and Maggie discuss how a recent bead up a preschool nose cost one of them $1400. (Actually $1700– a additional bill just came.)”
Tom Drake from Canadian Finance Blog presents The new breed of financial bloggers: Young, frugal and vocal, and says, “I’ve discovered a lot of young bloggers who do care about personal finance. Young bloggers can fill a void in financial education for young people.”
Tom from Stupid Cents presents What Is Term Life Insurance?, and says, “Life insurance is important for everyone but it can be expensive. That is where term life insurance can be the most helpful.”
Philip from PT Money: Personal Finance presents How to Pick a College that Suits You, and says, “Financial and other considerations when deciding on a college.”
That’s it. If you enjoyed this little journey through silver, please take a moment to subscribe to Live Real, Now.
Making Extra Money Part 3: Product Selection
When you’re setting up a niche site, you need to monetize it. You need to have a way to make money, or it’s a waste of time.
There are two main ways to do that: AdSense or product promotion. To set up an AdSense site, you write a bunch of articles, post them on a website with some Google ads, and wait for the money to roll in.
I don’t do that.
I don’t own a single AdSense site and have never set one up. This article is not about setting up an Adsense site.
My niches site are all product-promotion sites. I pick a product–generally an e-book or video course–and set up a site dedicated to it.
Naturally, picking a good product is an important part of the equation.
The most important part of product selection is that the product has an affiliate program. Without that, there’s no money to be made. There are a lot of places to find affiliate programs. Here are a few:
- Amazon. If you don’t live in one of the states that Amazon has dropped in retaliation for passing laws that attempt to circumvent the Supreme Court’s ruling on collecting sales tax, you can sign up as an associate and collect a commission on every referral you send that turns into a purchase. That means you have a lot of product to choose from. Unfortunately, your commission is small, so you need to promote fairly expensive products to get a decent return. On the other hand, people trust Amazon, so that’s one less hurdle to making a sale.
- Commission Junction. These are the people managing affiliate programs for a large number of credit cards and banks. If you’ve opened an account with INGDirect through one of my links, I got a commission for the referral. (Thank you!) They have a lot of other products, too.
- e-Junkie. This one is a popular distribution system for bloggers. It’s likely that, if you’ve bought an ebook from a blogger, e-Junkie handled the fulfillment process. A lot of the products available there have an affiliate program, but that is up to the owner of the product.
- ClickBank. My favorite. This is one of the largest affiliate networks specializing in electronic products, whether that’s membership sites, ebooks, or video courses. Commissions are good, often 50-75%. They also offer a 60 day guarantee of every product sold through their site, which helps soothe the wary customer. This is the site I’ll be using for this series.
The first thing you need to do is sign up for whichever program you intend to use.
If you’re not going with Clickbank, feel free to skip ahead to the section on keyword research.
Once you are signed up and logged in, click on the “Marketplace” link at the top of the screen.
From here, it’s just a matter of finding a good product to sell. Here are the niches we’re going to be looking for:
- Back pain
- Bankruptcy
- Conflict resolution at work
- Detox diets
- Fat kids
- Foreclosure avoidance
- Job hunting
- Weddings
- Writing sales copy
I’m going to look for one or two good products in each niche. When that’s done we’ll narrow it down by consumer demand.
For now, go to advanced search.
Enter your keyword, pick the category and set the advanced search stats. Gravity is the number of affiliates who have made sales in the last month. I don’t like super-high numbers, but I also want to make sure that the item is sellable. Over 10 and under 50 or so seems to be a good balance.
The average sale just ensures that I’ll make a decent amount of money when someone buys the product. I usually aim for $25 or more in commissions per sale. Also, further down, check the affiliate tools box. That means the seller will have some resources for you to use.
This combination will give us 36 products to check out for back pain, unfortunately, none of the results are for back pain products. After unchecking the affiliate tools and setting the gravity to greater than 1, I’ve got 211 results. Sorting by keyword relevance, I see three products, two of which look like something I’d be interested in promoting. One has a 45% commission, the other is 55%. The X-Pain Method has an initial commission of $34 and claims a 5% refund rate. Back Pain, Sciatica, and Bulging Disc Relief pays $16, which will make it a potentially easier sale. I’ll add both to the list for further research.
I’m not going to detail the search for the rest of the niches. That would be repetitive. You can see my selections here:
- Back pain – X-Pain Method; Back Pain, Sciatica, and Bulging Disc Relief
- Bankruptcy – I’m dropping this one from the list. It’s too complicated and deserves an attorney. I don’t know enough about the topic to make sure it is up to date.
- Conflict resolution at work – Management Training: By the Book; Anger Management for the 21st Century
- Detox diets – Master Cleanse Secrets: 10 Day Diet; Master Cleanse Insider; Eating for Energy: Raw Food Diet for Weight Loss
- Fat kids – I’m dropping this one, too. A kid’s health is too important. I don’t want to sell a dangerous or unethical product.
- Foreclosure avoidance – How to Stop Foreclosure in 7 Days Flat; Foreclosure Defense Secrets
- Job hunting – Guerrilla Resumes; Amazing Cover Letters
- Weddings – All Types of Wedding Speeches; The Master Wedding Planning Guide; Amazing Wedding Planning
- Writing sales copy – Instant Swipe File; Ad Copy Creator Pro; How to Write Killer Copy
Now we’re going to go through a few steps for each of these products.
The Sales Page
We need to make sure the sales page doesn’t suck. If the site doesn’t work, is hard to read or navigate, has a hard-to-find order button, or just doesn’t look professional, it’s getting cut.
- Raw Foods is eliminated. The sales video is horrible and the order link is at the bottom of several screens worth of nothing. It’s a crap site.
- The 7 day foreclosure-avoidance product is out. Site’s down today. I want reliability.
- Management Training By The Book is out. I don’t like typos on the sales page, especially in the page title.
The Email List
If it has an email subscription form, we’ll need to subscribe, then double-check to make sure our affiliate information isn’t getting dropped in the emails. If it is, the seller is effectively stealing commissions. In the interest of time and laziness, I’m going to eliminate anyone pushing for an email subscription. It’s harder–and time-consuming–to monitor that. On of my niche site had a seller completely drop their product. Instead, they pushed for email subscriptions so they could promote other products as an affiliate. Absolutely unethical.
- Wedding speeches is eliminated for throwing a mandatory email entry into the order process. There’s no guarantee they are up to anything shady, but I’m taking the simple route.
Checkout and Credit
Finally, we’re going to visit the checkout page. You need to do this from every links in the newsletter and the links on the sales page, just to make sure you’ll get your money.
The way to tell who’s being credited is to look at the bottom of the order page, under the payment information. It should say [affiliate = xxx] where xxxis your ClickBank ID. Anything else, and the product gets cut from the list.
When you are checking these, don’t click on every possible link at once. That confuses the cookies. Do one at a time. I tried to do it in one batch for this post and lost half of the cookies. If it weren’t for the fact that I already own one of the products and bought it through my own link and got credited, I would have been talking undeserved trash about thieving companies.
Other Factors
Sometimes, when you’re examining a product, it just doesn’t feel right. When that happens, drop it. There are millions of other products you can promote. In this case, I’m dropping the anger management program because, in my experience, angry people don’t think they are the problem. Here’s a life tip: If everyone else is a jerk, the problem probably isn’t everyone else.
- Another important factor is the sales page itself. If it doesn’t make you want to buy the product, why would anyone else?
- Amazing Cover Letters is eliminated because it’s too easy to overlook the buy link. If I have to hunt for it, it’s losing customers.
- Amazing Wedding Planning is getting eliminated because I don’t like the sales page. The buy link is easy to overlook, and it doesn’t compel me to buy.
Now we’re down to 10 products in 6 niches. At this point, we’re comfortable with the sales pages and we know that they are crediting commissions. As it stands right now, all of the products are worth promoting.
- Back pain – X-Pain Method; Back Pain, Sciatica, and Bulging Disc Relief
- Detox diets – Master Cleanse Secrets: 10 Day Diet; Master Cleanse Insider
- Foreclosure avoidance – Foreclosure Defense Secrets
- Job hunting – Guerrilla Resumes
- Weddings – The Master Wedding Planning Guide;
- Writing sales copy – Instant Swipe File; Ad Copy Creator Pro; How to Write Killer Copy
We’ll make the final determination after doing some heavy keyword research in the next installment. That’s where we’ll find out how hard it is to compete.
Any questions?
I’d Tap That: Making Life Difficult for Government Spying
Skip to the bottom if you’re familiar with PRISM and don’t want to hear any political talk and rampant violations of our Constitutional rights, but still want to protect your privacy.
For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, the PRISM program is an NSA program to monitor electronic activity.
Lots of electronic activity.
The companies identified to be working with the NSA in this grand overreach include AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, PalTalk, Skype, Yahoo! and YouTube. For most people, that is the definition of “the internet”. If you’re doing it online, the NSA is–or could be, at their leisure–watching.
This isn’t a crazy conspiracy theory. This is happening, and the government has admitted it. In fact, when this broke, the executive branch’s response was along the lines of, “Don’t worry, we’ll find the guy who leaked this information.”
On top of that, the government has been demanding phone records from at least Verizon on a daily basis.
In addition, the Justice Department was just busted wiretapping Associated Press phones.
Seriously, if you put this in fiction, nobody would buy it, because it’s ridiculous in the land of the free.
As far as the people who say I’ve got nothing to worry about if I’m not doing anything wrong: shut up. You can speak again when you give me your email passwords, bank records, and let me install a toilet cam in your house. What are you trying to hide?
Seriously, there is such a mess of non-legislative administrative regulations that are considered felonies that the best estimate is that most people commit three felonies a day, without realizing it.
- Catch your kid with a joint and neglect to call the cops? Welcome to the federal penitentiary.
- Use one of those pill planner things to sort prescription meds for your half-senile grandmother? In some states, that’s a felony.
When we live in a system with so many rules that have never been voted on and our legal system refuses to consider legitimate ignorance of the law to be a defense and we have a collection of secret laws that are a felony to disclose or violate, government spying gets far more dangerous.
- Many TSA guidelines are secret.
- The Banking Secrecy Act of 1970 has a number of secret provisions.
- FISA.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978(FISA) is the law the NSA is using to justify all of these data requests. The law, that we all must obey, is being overseen by a small subcommittee in Congress, and the FISA courts are just a small subset of the judges. The judges are signing warrants allowing the wiretaps and massive surveillance, but that is clearly unconstitutional and, hence, illegal.
The text of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, the supreme law of the United States is: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
Any warrant that cannot name a place to be searched is illegal.
Any warrant that cannot describe the person to be monitored is illegal.
Any warrant that is not backed by probable cause is illegal.
Tell me how “I want to watch what everyone is saying on Facebook and seize all of the data” meets any of those criteria.
Bueller?
Wiretapping the AP is a serious violation of the First Amendment, too. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
“Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press..and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Monitoring the press in case somebody breaks a story the government doesn’t want broken is crap.
How can we petition the government for redress of grievances that they call a felony if the company discloses the violation to us? It’s self-serving circular crap.
When you throw the IRS harassing charities working for the “wrong” politics, you start to pine for the good old days of Nixon-level fair play and integrity.
To be fair, FISA got nasty with the Patriot Act, which was an abomination enacted by a different political party. Hey, Washington, next time try to remember that your laws will someday be administered by your political enemies, k? (NSA: I trust you’ll pass the message for me?)
Political talk is over. How do we stop the government snooping?
There are four main pieces to discuss, based on the scandalous Constitutional violations reported recently.
1. Social media monitoring. There’s nothing to this. If you post things on Facebook, the government sees it and knows it’s you. Don’t post anything you don’t want broadcast to the police, your grandmother, and your priest.
2. Internet browsing. There is very little that is secure on the internet. The government can subpoena your ISP and get any records they keep. Unless you go anonymous and encrypted. Welcome to TOR. The Onion Router is a system that encrypts your internet traffic and bounces it all over the world. Once you enter TOR, nothing you do can be tracked, until your internet request leave the TOR system. The system is not centrally owned or controlled, so nobody in the system can track what you are doing.
For example, if I use the TOR browser to search Wikipedia, a snoopy NSA goon could tell I’m using it, and they could tell there was a request from the TOR system to Wikipedia, but they can’t tie one request to the other. If I’m dumb and log into Facebook, I lose that anonymous shield.
That’s solid protection from anyone watching your internet traffic.
How do you use it?
Easy. Just install the Tor Bundle. When you want the NSA to stop snooping over your shoulder because you want to do a search on erectile dysfunction, you launch TOR and the TOR browser and search without having to share your embarrassing secrets.
3. Email. Email is easily the least secure means you can communicate. When you send an email, that message is in plain text, and it bounces from server to server until it reaches the recipient. Any of the involved servers can keep a log of the traffic and read your email.
Never, ever, ever, ever put anything incriminating or important in an email. Don’t send credit card numbers, your social security number, or the address of your meth lab.
But what if you want to have a dirty conversation with your spouse without letting the sick voyeurs at the NSA listen to you ask your wife what she’s wearing and how would she like it torn off?
Use PGP. OpenPGP is a free software encryption program that is basically impossible to decrypt. It’s known as public-key encryption, which means that anybody can encrypt a message to you that only you can read.
It’s like magic.
To use PGP, the easy way(for Windows users) is to get Gpg4win. Install that, then open Kleopatra. This will let you generate your encryption key. You do that by:
- Clicking File, then New Certificate
- Click Create Personal OpenPGP key pair
- Enter your name and email, then click next, then “Create Key”. Enter your passphrase when asked.
You now have a set of PGP keys. To get your public key that others can use to send you messages, right-click your certificate and select “Export certificates”. Pick a path to save the certificate, then do so. You can open this file with notepad to get your public key, or you can email the file out. There is no need to worry about security with this file.
You will end up with something that looks like my public key here:
—–BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK—–
Version: GnuPG v2.0.20 (MingW32)mQENBFGyPPkBCAC8zc5B7srG/ZyRMpokP3KyIMd9GA4n94wT89sP/yWFylbTKXDM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=fHba
—–END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK—–
To get your private key, that you can use with any number of plugins for your email client, right-click on your certificate and select “Export secret keys.”
You can either use PGP as a plugin for your email client, or you can use Kleopatra’s feature “Sign/encrypt files”. To do that, write your message in a file, then select the feature inside Kleopatra. You’ll end up with an encrypted file you can attach to your email that snoopy government man can’t read.
4. Phone calls. This would appear to be harder, since your phone is largely out of your control. There’s nothing practical you do about a landline, except to avoid saying anything sensitive. On your cell phone, you have options, assuming you use a smartphone.
For Android users, it’s free an easy. Install Redphone. If you place a call with Redphone, it checks to see if the caller also uses Redphone. If he does, it places an encrypted call over your data plan to the other phone. Nobody can listen in to an encrypted call. The same company also makes a program for texting.
For iPhone users, you’re stuck with Silent Circle for $10/month, which may be a better option, since there is support for more devices, including Android. It was designed by the guy who designed PGP and handles texting and email, too.
That’s it.
There you are, the whats, whys, and hows of modern, hassle-light, private communications. Doing what we can to foil bad government programs is our patriotic duty.
Toxic People
You should never be in the company of anyone with whom you would not want to die.
-Duncan Idaho, from God-Emperor of Dune
Some people suck the life out of everyone they encounter. Whether it be through lies, unreasonable demands, emotional abuse or manipulation, or just a vile personalty, the people they meet are worse off for the encounter. The people they interact with every day are screwed.
My time is too precious to waste any of it unnecessarily on people who remove value from it. I like being with people who enrich my life, instead.
Unfortunately, since I’m not an advocate for the use of hitmen, not every toxic person is easy to eliminate from your life.
Toxic people come in 3 basic varieties: professional, personal, and family. There is some overlap between the categories.
The personal category is easiest to deal with. These people aren’t relatives or coworkers, so you won’t see them at family gatherings or at work. I’ve dealt with these people in two ways.
First, there is the direct approach. One former friend, who was really only a friend when it was convenient for him(a pure leech), got told that he wasn’t invited to one of our parties because I was inviting his ex-wife, instead. That was the last time he called me.
The second option is far more passive. I set up a contact group in my phone called “Life’s too short”. At first, I set it up with a fairly insulting ring tone, but I later switched it to no ring at all. I don’t know they’ve called until I check my voicemail. It’s far less direct, but also far easier than the direct approach.
Dealing with the toxic people in your family is more complicated. You’ll see them at holiday gatherings, or hear about them during unrelated visits. You probably have a lot of memories growing up with them, and may feel some level of obligation–deserved or not–to maintain contact. It’s hard to break a tie that you’ve had your entire life.
Can you fix their behavior? It’s worth trying to have a frank discussion about how they are treating you, or the things they are doing. If the problem is that they are constantly bringing over their methhead boyfriends, banning the drug addicts from your home, while still welcoming the relative may be an acceptable fix. If the problem is a constant need to belittle you, demanding they stop may work. If the problem is a lifetime of emotional abuse, it probably isn’t fixable.
Is banishment an option? Can you put that creepy cousin on the Life’s Too Short list? You’ll still have to deal with him at family gatherings, but you can always leave the room when he comes in, right? Don’t engage, don’t participate in any conversation beyond a polite greeting, and don’t offer any encouragement towards regular contact.
It’s possible that it won’t be possible to fix their behavior and that you won’t want to banish the offender. If, for example, the offender is your mother (Not you, Mom!), you may feel a sense of obligation to maintain contact, or even be a primary caregiver at times. This is a line nobody else can draw for you. At some point, the current bad behavior could overwhelm the past obligations. When that happens are you prepared for it? That can be a traumatic break.
The other option, as cold as it sounds, is to wait it out. Nature will take its course, eventually. Can you wait that long, while maintaining your sanity and emotional equilibrium?
Professional toxic people include customers, vendors, and coworkers, none of whom are easy to get rid of.
If you own the business, you can fire your problem customers if the hassle outweighs the benefits you get from the relationship. You can find a new vendor, and you can fire the problem employees.
What happens if you are an employee?
If the problem is your boss, your options are to suck it up, talk to his boss, or find a new job. If the first is intolerable, and the second is impossible, it’s time to polish your resume.
If the problem is a vendor, you’ve got some options. Document the problems, first. Does he make inappropriate jokes, or badmouth you to your customers? Then, research the alternatives. Does one of his competitors offer an equivalent product or service? Take the documentation and research to your boss, or whoever makes that decision, and see if you can get your company to make the switch. The other option, is to request someone new to deal with at the vendor’s company, but that may not always be possible.
Finally, we come to the problem of toxic coworkers.
Some coworkers have the same problems as a toxic boss. Is the company vice-president the boss’s baby brother? You’re probably not going to find a win there. You’ll have to suck it up or move on.
Is the problem person working in an unrelated department doing unrelated tasks? It may be possible to start taking breaks at different times and leave him where he belongs: in the past.
Is the difficult individual sharing an office with you, demanding everything be done his way, and throwing daily tantrums? This is the one that has to be dealt with. He’s the one sucking the life out of you every single day.
First, start making use of a voice recorder. If you’ve got a smartphone, you’ve probably already got one. Otherwise, drop the $20 to buy one. This lets you document the evil. When his behavior goes hinky, record it.
Second, stand up for yourself. If he’s making unreasonable demands, tell him it’s inappropriate. He’s a bully, and bullies tend to back down when they are confronted.
Third, make sure the boss knows about the behavior. Yes, this is tattling. Get over it. If he wasn’t acting like he was a spoiled 4 year old, you wouldn’t have to tell the boss that he was. If the boss doesn’t know there’s a problem, he can’t deal with it.
Fourth, for any problem that isn’t directly aimed at you, ignore it. If he makes a habit of throwing a tantrum because somebody emptied the coffee pot, or because the company switched health plans, let him. Only get in the way if it’s directed at you. Over time, the tantrums will get more noticeable and out of hand, forcing the boss to deal with it, preferably by handing him a pink slip.
Your goal is documentation, awareness, and avoidance. Make the worst of it go elsewhere so you can be as productive as possible, document what you can, and let the boss become aware of the situation and how bad it has become. And be patient. This isn’t an overnight fix.
How do you deal with the toxic people in your life?
