A mountain of your personal information is accessible to anyone with a computer and an easily obtained subpoena. The always excellent Center for Investigative Reporting has teamed with NPR to explain how easy it is to find your personal information and use it against you. “Often, a simple form is all that’s required to access prescription histories, credit card purchases, monthly banking statements, ATM withdrawals, wire transfers, tax returns and, perhaps most importantly, the rich digital portraits we keep on our smartphones.”

+ Aeon’s Stuart Armstrong examines the contrarian view. “In the future, most people will live in a total surveillance state — and some of us might even like it.”

+ Maybe we should just go back to spying on each other the old fashioned way: With ravens, pigeons, and cats.