“The government is watching me all the time. They have implanted devices to eavesdrop on me.” It used to be when a client or friend made this type of statement to you, it was time to gently steer them toward a mental-health evaluation.

But after I attended several session at ABA TECHSHOW 2016, I decided to write a column for the Oklahoma Bar Journal titled “You Are Not Paranoid If They Really Are Watching You −Attorney-Client Privilege, Confidentiality and Cybersecurity in the 21st Century.” I covered several of the interesting things we learned at ABA TECHSHOW from panelists like ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project Director Chris Soghoian, digital rights attorney Marcia Hoffman, Ben Wizner who is the lead attorney for NSA leaker Edward Snowden and Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Let’s face it, if you are representing Edward Snowden, you should probably operate as if not just our government but also many foreign powers would love to know everything you know and read all of your files.

I cover some basic security practices in this column that are good for lawyers and everyone else to understand. For example, if your child has a laptop in their bedroom, do you know why and where applying a Band-Aid to it is a good security practice? Do you know how to make an encrypted call from your mobile phone or send an encrypted text message? Do you know about the benefits and risks of encrypting your laptop’s hard drive? Many lawyers today use BitLocker to do that. And passwords− we are not great with password security in our society.

You don’t have to be paranoid to read my column. And you can learn about cybersecurity and so much more by attending ABA TECHSHOW. Save the date for ABA TECHSHOW 2017 right now. It is March 15-18, 2017