Edward Snowden is 29 years old. He’ll be 30 on the 21st of June. Everyone wants to be significant, to make their mark on the world. Maybe that’s what Snowden was thinking when June 1 rolled around, commemorating the last lap of his 20’s as he slipped towards thirty-somethinghood. Maybe that impending insecurity was his motivation. Whatever the motivation it was, it sure was powerful. Powerful enough to make him willing to become an enemy of the United States intelligence community. You know, the same one that killed Osama Bin Laden.

In June of 2013 Edward Snowden was in Hong Kong. While there, he released to the press documents that detailed how the National Security Agency of the United States had access to information on the servers of companies like Apple, Google and Facebook. He acquired these documents while working for the CIA and NSA.

Edward Snowden has checked out of his hotel in Hong Kong and disappeared into hiding. But the firestorm over who to blame for what has only just begun. Meanwhile, Americans are in a panic over their perceived betrayal by the government and the fear that their every online communication was being surveilled.

Calm down. It’s not that deep. Here’s why.

1. PRISM is owned by the government

PRISM is a data collection effort initiated by the National Security Agency of the United States. According to James Clapper, the Director Of National Intelligence for the US, PRISM may collect a buttload of information, but it cannot be used to target an individual American citizen. So that email you wrote where you confessed to a multitude of childhood wrongs may be sitting on a government server somewhere, but they can’t do anything with it against you.

Also, there is this thing called The Constitution that starts off with ten rules called The Bill of Rights. These amendments outline exactly how the government can and cannot treat you. They make take some liberties, but they can only go so far without severe repercussion from the American public…for now.

2. This can’t really affect your day-to-day life

Are you scared that the federal government may be watching you, just waiting for a chance to bust you for any supposed wrong? Don’t worry. Without due process an email alone cannot convict you of anything you may or may not have done. And due process would require a lot more than the US could justify to American taxpayers.

Think of it this way. Not even your local police would pursue you over this kind of stuff without substantial evidence of wrongdoing. And an email or facebook message or text isn’t enough to build a case. So keep that shoplifted lip balm and chill out. But don’t do it again.

3. Social Media

Sure, you can keep your boss from seeing the pics from your bikini party vacation in Atlanta, but the government could always see them. But if you ever thought your facebook stuff was safe, you are sadly mistaken. Twice in the last five years Facebook, while upgrading the security, shut off every user’s privacy settings so that everything they were trying to hide was wide open for viewing.

No matter what social media websites like Twitter, Facebook, etc. tell you, your information could at any time be made public. Install any Facebook games? They asked you for access to your personal information before they were even installed. And not all of these games adhere to Facebook’s privacy expectations. Proof? Look yourself up on spokeo.com.

4. Free email

Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft amongst others offer fairly robust free email services. But they’re free. You don’t pay a time. They will not have the highest caliber security protocols no matter what they try to tell you.

Don’t think they’re giving away your info though, certainly not. But their servers won’t be hard to crack by professionals that want your info…like the US government and their PRISM initiative.

5. Everything can and will be hacked

The only thing that prevents a hacker from getting your information online is time. The idea here is that every network can be hacked. Computers can have awesome protocols in place to protect your personal information, but those protocols and the code they were designed with, were designed by humans. And humans always make mistakes.

So…if everything can be hacked and your information could, at any time, be observed by a third party how can we keep our personal information absolutely safe? Thankfully, there’s a simple solution.

6. If you don’t want to be watched on the internet, don’t be on the internet

The internet isn’t perfect, but it is fun. It has so much waiting for you by way of entertainment, developing skills, interacting with friends and hundreds of other uses. But you will always be susceptible to hacking or having your personal business exposed while using it.

Using the internet is like driving a car. It will get you where you need to go way faster than just using old-fashioned methods of transportation, but you could always get in an accident. You could be hurt. You could be permanently injured. You could even be killed. Are you still gonna drive? Hell yeah!

Treat the internet with care. Respect it. Keep your most sensitive information off of it. And, when you get a minute, use it to find the number for your Congressperson so you can tell them to quit spying on American citizens.

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