The subjects of Privacy and Asset Protection are complex issues. Most people today just “throw their hands in the air” and give up. New laws enacted since the September 11th 2001 terrorists attacks have taken away a lot of the liberties that we once enjoyed.
The good news is that privacy from “legal terrorists” is still possible. It is also still possible to protect your assets from dead beats and lawyers. However, you must be diligent and you must begin your plan BEFORE ANY TROUBLE STARTS. Be warned… for the average American the contingent fee lawyer is the number one terrorist of the 21st century!
This article is designed to help you get started. It has been written with the novice in mind. However, after reading this information you will know more privacy and asset protection concepts than 98% of the American public.
Use this information wisely. Think through your “battle plan” before acting.
Remember, if it is worth acquiring, it is worth protecting!
Many of us that are concerned about our privacy rights are accused of having irrational suspicions better known as PARANOIA. Because we wonder who is calling us in the evening (usually during the dinner hour) and how they got our telephone number (do they have our address too?) we are thought of as weird or eccentric. Are we deviates from the norm. Or are we rightfully concerned about the safety of our families in a world-gone whacko?
Throughout recent history each generation has thought the succeeding generation was not as moral, hardworking, ethical or loyal as the generation before it. While it is true that for some reason it is easier today to take advantage of someone else when they are at the other end of a telephone, fax, or modem, the true culprit seems to be access to private information about each other.
To some degree it is to our advantage to have access to millions of individual's credit histories (if we are a landlord for example), but the abuse of access is becoming the monster that could destroy the system. Individuals, the federal government, the IRS, medical organizations and your state taxing bodies are collecting information on you constantly. Very few (if any) of these information gatherers will use this data to your benefit. Rest assured, this personal information will be used against you. How do you get out of the system? It is very difficult and you may not want to pay the price.
A complete "divorce" from the "access" world is probably unrealistic if you are 1) married 2) have children 3) dependant upon public lenders 4) are in a "sales" type job that requires accessibility to succeed. But, let’s explore the possibilities anyway and you can pick and choose the methods you think would help your situation.
We know of people who are very good at dropping out of the system, but it takes extreme discipline. They have been able to set up a system of rules to follow that places them out of reach, for the most part. However, most of us cannot attain this level of privacy (for reasons explained herein). Therefore, we must decide what level of privacy we can obtain reasonably and with the cooperation of our family. Family cooperation is the key to successful privacy because if only some members of the family desire privacy, then the other members will unwittingly destroy the protection established.
First, let’s start with your Social Security Number. This number is the most sought-after number in America today. With your SS# anyone can obtain information on your credit, consumer buying activities, your home address, past and present employment, etc. etc. etc! Your Home Address is the second most important piece of personal information. With your address, an adversary can have you served legal notices, put explosive devices in your mailbox, or harass you and your family. The combination of your SS# and your home address is potentially lethal.
Next, consider your assets. Whose name are they listed in? How easy would it be to find your assets and attach them or sell them for cash if we were trying to satisfy a judgment obtained against you for running over my dog? Can we just go to the local courthouse (or online) and look up all the property you own listed under your name?
Is your phone number listed in the local directory? Can we find you listed in one of the National Information Superhighway systems? Watch out for your Personal Computer connections. This will be the ultimate information-gathering tool of the future (don't forget your interactive TV set too!).
How about your cell phone? Did you know that anyone with the right device could monitor your cell phone calls via their home or office? And that same individual can sit outside your home and listen to all of your conversations spoken over your Cordless Telephones inside your home?
What is going on here? Is nothing private anymore? Do you care that this information is available to anyone and everyone? Maybe you don't care, but we do.
Privacy is an individual perception. Some of us need and want more privacy than others. From a practical standpoint (as mentioned above), obtaining any degree of secrecy for our families is becoming almost impossible in this computerized world. But there are actions that you can take and more importantly an attitude that you can adopt that will protect you and your loved ones--to a certain degree.
The first and most important step is to sit your family down at a "family type" meeting (you don't need to have kids in order to have a family meeting. This is just a good excuse to calmly sit down and discuss the important things going on in your lives). Perhaps you are already conducting family meetings on a regular basis for other reasons. If so, you can just interject this new subject matter at your next regularly scheduled meeting. If not, you may want to start holding regular monthly family meetings to cover all the important family information that must be discussed anyway. Then just bring up the subject of Family Privacy nonchalantly. If your family is like ours, you will need to ease into this subject or you will receive a backlash of criticism. Remember, this subject is new to most of us and is certainly new to children who are routinely trained at school to "give away the farm" when required to submit information to their school.
If you don't have children yet, or they are grown up and gone or you never plan on having children, then you are ahead of the game to begin with. They are very hard to educate towards keeping family information private.
As you can see we are already dividing up into categories of "degrees of privacy" just based on the type of family we live in. For those of you who are single, don't forget you have an "extended family" that can make or break your privacy attempt. This whole procedure is like trying to put the horse back into the barn after it has been out for years! Oh, if we all would have just been concerned about our private lives (and keeping it private) from the day we were born. Even though this obviously wouldn't have been practical, it does serve to demonstrate how we can help our children for their futures. Imagine how little privacy our kids will have 25 years from now if we don't start curbing the massive flow of information now?
PUT THIS GOOD INFORMATION TO WORK!
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