What have you got on me?

„Better not over the phone.“ Every journalist who wants to talk about just slightly sensitive information will hear such a reply. Politicians, policemen, secret service agents, judges, and an increasing number of ordinary citizens reply in this manner, when they're about to disclose even trivial information. Lately, the internet is part of to this auto-censorship and fear of public CCTV cameras during meetings in public places comes into play. At least in the circles of the powerful and the safety-concerned elite, fear of being watched is growing as well as anxiety that private information could get in the wrong hands –hands that might use or abuse it. Is this fear justified? And can we protect ourselves against the threat?

Bug in a nursery school

The biggest bogeyman of information abuse is the government. In plain theory there's nothing we should be afraid of. Local laws are far from giving the police and secret services too much right to invade our privacy massively. Wiretapping, checks of mail and email, and perusal of credit card statements must be approved by a court, which does so only in case of a criminal offense where the minimum upper sentence reaches eight years in prison. All that sounds great. However, it certainly doesn't put an end to our fears over being spied on.

Let's take wiretapping only. The police and secret services applied wiretapping in around 8,000 cases last year only.…