Talking to your representative is roughly as useful in curbing these things, as doing nothing at all. What's the real solution?
Also supporting EFF & ACLU and their efforts to use the laws seems to be somewhat effective.
It also comes back to the individual convenience vs collective action. If everybody obeys the orders of border agents, police, etc without exercising their rights because they have nothing to hide, this gets easier by the day.
This is not about hiding something, this is about harrasment of an individual's privacy.
Have you ever called your representatives?
Knock yourself out.
Spoiler alert: almost everyone reports getting a cookie-cutter email or scripted response about why the rep will stay the course. They clearly have an established strategy of how to handle the 'contact your rep' crowd and channel their efforts to /dev/null.
Who is “almost everyone”? Any personal experience?
Mine involves getting a personal e-mail from my state Assemblyman, being patched in to the senior legislative aide to my U.S. Congresswoman who spoke to me at length about the issue, getting follow-up by e-mail to calls after the points I raised were discussed with my U.S. Senator, and being reached out to by my state Senator’s office for input on a draft bill. I also know that for my tech-savvy Manhattan Congressional district I am usually one of a small handful voters regularly calling in about digital privacy.
I’m fine with voters being busy or lazy. But don’t brag about it.
For your one story, you can click the top few links of that search to see detailed accounts and full documented histories from representatives who are clearly systemically stonewalling this kind of activism. And judging by those counts, they are the majority.
Onlookers are to make of that what they will.
Many of “thousand of Reddit stories” are just like your comment. Repeating a meme, nothing more.
Will your representatives always be responsive? No. Some are worse than others. On some issues, the political tea leaves are too obvious to merit discussion.
By and large, however, representatives and their staff care about their constituents. When you call (better than form responses on websites), you show you care about an issue. Their offices want to know if you represent a budding movement they can attach to.
You’ve cast aside a core civic right and, in my opinion, duty, based on anonymous forum comments. It would take you thirty minutes to call yourself, but that’s too much of a hassle. Fine, that’s your right. It’s also mine to call out your comments as emotional self-indulgence more than anything substantive.
Demonstrably, provably, completely, wrong.
https://www.reddit.com/r/netneutrality/comments/7kzblu/i_con... - 4 page account of comms
https://www.reddit.com/r/Firearms/comments/75yjkd/the_offici... - photos showing redditor attended in person instead of making a phone call. Was told their concerns would be 'passed along'
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/6dm169/i_also... - full account of comms. Again cookie cutter response.
Maybe this is biased because it's the top results. Let's jump to page 4.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SaltLakeCity/comments/7dtlyr/i_just... - rep's voice mail is full and has been for months. No response
https://www.reddit.com/r/Connecticut/comments/7gwins/this_is... - representative actually stands up for the interests of constituents. Yay, we got one!
No memes here, just detailed accounts which overwhelmingly demonstrate that paid-for representatives have a strategy to deal with this. As for civic duties, you do not have a civic duty to uphold a process which is a textbook example of regulatory capture. If you get success by doing it, great. But statistically, for the majority of Americans, talking to their rep is worse than doing nothing. It's spending their time and effort on a process which is designed to ignore them, so they don't spend that same effort searching for an alternative process which might actually work.
This process used to be effective; before it was circumvented by lobbying activity. You can't cling to it today just because it worked yesterday. You also can't get jobs by just turning up to places and handing out your CV. Times change.
Yeah, some reps are bad and don't listen but I'm willing to bet most at least log down how many people complain about what. Having an attitude of contacting them does nothing only just makes things worse and has no potential upside. At least if you do "waste" your time contacting them you may have a change to do good.
The biggest irony is that shortly after I contact any legislator telling them how I oppose their policy position, they start sending me mail asking for campaign contributions.
Call your representative, or meet them in person when they're back in the district. If they know you're a real person, they will respond to you directly with something more than a scripted response.
Calling your rep, or meeting them in person, are the two most effective ways to communicate your concerns. Because people who take the time to call or meet in person are also the type of people who take the time to vote, and in the end that's what really matters.