Preface

“You’re just being paranoid."

It’s a phrase that intimidates, shames, and scares. Too often, it sentences real victims of electronic surveillance to silent suffering. It’s also a phrase that can reveal unflattering things about the speaker, who may simply be ignorant, shallow, or mean, and who sometimes shows a strong tendency to avoid reality. The fact is, other people cannot make your problems go away by telling you that they do not exist—and neither can you.

Life has taught all of us some valuable lessons: An ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of cure. Trust your instincts. And that noise you heard coming from your car’s engine yesterday will not go away tomorrow; it will get worse.

Granted, some people really do have paranoia problems. But these people usually do not confess to having a specific fear about specific events, such as receiving odd text messages on their cell phone or hearing background noises that were never there before. They express their concerns in more general terms, such as “They know everything about me” or “It’s been going on for years.” Regardless, these people need kindness and medical help, not name calling.

The vast majority of us, however, lead busy lives. Thoughts of electronic surveillance and spying do not normally occur to us. We have too many real thoughts vying for our attention. There is neither time nor reason to dream up stories of omnipotent adversaries who know our every spoken word, thought, and move.

If thoughts of eavesdropping are new to you and you have a suspect with a motive in mind, pay attention. Your intuition is telling you that something is wrong. Too many “coincidences” have tipped your inner warning scale. Your subconscious alert is...