1/3rd of US senators and all representatives have an election coming up. They care more about voters than they do about Apple's $38 Billion[2] in liquid assets, so they need to be convinced that votes are on the side of sound security.
Related, I once read an AMA on Reddit where a congressional staffer advised everyone to do their best to get op-ed pieces in newspapers which mention your elected officials, since it was their job and the job of the staffers they knew to compile such pieces for review every morning by the legislator.
The response to "if you have nothing to hide etc." Should be "What is the password to your bank account?", not a more abstract philosophical argument.
Ask a random person on street "do you care about encryption?" v/s "Do you care about civil liberties?" and see the response.
People who want abortion rights call themselves "pro-choice" where in reality it is about denying choice to a baby.
People who want abortion ban call themselves "pro-life" where in reality they are denying woman right on her own body.
The terminology makes all the difference and growth hackers in bay area understand it far too well. When apps ask for you phone number they say "This will help to keep your account secure" but in reality the number is being used to identify you as individual.
Perhaps the software workers of America should consider organizing a professional association, just like the AMA? It would have all sorts of benefits beyond organizing political action.
The USACM website [2] does not mention anything about the ongoing DOJ vs. Apple case, or upcoming encryption laws being drafted by Burr-Feinstein.
Their "Tech Policy Blog" is currently down ("Access forbidden!") [3]
Most of the discussion I see about policy has to do about diversifying computer science and getting more women involved. This is laudable, but given recent news you'd think they would have some comment on their website about the DOJ, Apple, or encryption in general.
The EFF, on the other hand, has kept us well informed about proposed laws and the Apple FBI case.
Don't assume that someone else will represent you via a petition. Calling or writing yourself is much more powerful.
(1) If your district isn't contentious, that means the sum of factors aren't of sufficient effect size to care about that specific district. With limited funds, you concentrate elsewhere.
(2) Just because there's noise doesn't mean that people's opinions have changed. You're assuming that people's opinions have not already been modeled. Some elected official may suddenly get a flood of emails about gun rights in proximity to some highly publicized event on gun laws. That does not mean that the distribution or magnitude of opinions have substantively changed.
(3) Some groups do have negotiating power because they're aware of the political calculus more intimately than the average noise-making group like Black Lives Matter. They're able to distribute distilled information to their members and organize effective get-out-to-vote drives in the districts that matter (meaning they also do not wantonly spend their finite resources).
If you don't organize, then you are noise. Organizing is more important than voting (or writing a letter) itself, because part of organizing is dealing with finite resources through the skillful attending to the places that matter, and skillful neglect of the places that don't matter, implying that you can actually deliver on a get-out-to-vote drive when the time (and places) matters.
Second, my feeling is if someone sits down to think about an issue, writes a letter and stamps their name on it, then they probably become more informed and involved in discussion than another guy who just ticks a box on a petition. This informed person can go on to discuss the issue with friends or form his/her own local group. So, writing letters to senators is useful, even if it is just a first step or means to an end.
Nobody needs to change their opinion as a result of my letter. I wouldn't respect them if they did so without consideration. So (2) is irrelevant.
I didn't intend to clash with you, I'm just stating my opinion which is a bit different than yours. It's perfectly fine if you want to say writing letters is useless. I feel differently.
If you sit back and assume your district is already modeled, etc etc, then you are not participating in democracy and you have not seen for yourself who else out there might agree with you. The most important things about democracy are your vote and your voice. One without the other holds much less strength.
This needs to be understood by the President and the DOJ. Maintaining public security is an important, difficult job. We cannot rely on our family and friends to keep us safe, and our society and unity depends largely on law enforcement.
[1] https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/priv...
I tend to think that "public support for reform of mass policing" is too vague to get a real public opinion on. Everyone has different ideas on what needs to be reformed. By asking this questions you make citizens feel involved, but you don't get a real public discussion unless you are talking about something specific like putting back doors into phones. This was part of the problem with the Snowden revelations, in my opinion. There were so many that we had trouble attacking more than a few at a time. The larger issue of course is that the FISA court makes it impossible for the government to sufficiently comment on any of that.
[1] https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160224/18124533706/way-y...
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/03/18/technology/doc...