Today is The Day We Fight Back

All of the people who built the site and the banner are volunteers who met on HN across various threads, and not members of any of the advocacy orgs or companies listed on the site. We're really interested in getting feedback on how future campaigns can be better, and happy to discuss some of the decisions we made. The non-profits involved did all the legal and organization lifting, and this is a great opportunity to donate to the EFF and Demand Progress if you haven't recently.

Likely the most impactful thing you can do right now is to add the banner to your own site and ask the companies you work for to do the same. We've tried to make it as easy as possible to add the banner; you can find all the options (including a Cloudflare app and Wordpress plugins) here: https://github.com/tfrce/thedaywefightback.js

Pushing for technical solutions to the surveillance is also really important. Friends at Fight for the Future are launching a campaign along those lines as soon as this one wraps up, and there are a lot of open source projects (e.g. the great work done by [Whisper Systems](https://whispersystems.org)) that deserve attention.

But legislation and technology need to work hand in hand for things to change in the long run. Even if we have decent technical solutions, legal measures can easily limit the scope of their success (see Lavabit).

Here is great post from reddit by SomeKindOfMutant:

"Right idea; wrong methods. Let me explain. An email to your legislators may result in a form letter response and a phone call to the office may amount to a tally mark on an administrative assistant's notepad. But, if you want to get their attention, a letter to the editor published in one of your state's 5-10 biggest newspapers that mentions them specifically BY NAME is the way to go.

That is the crucial thing to know--the rest of this comment is an explanation of why I know this is true. I know this because, when I interned in the D.C. office of a senator one summer, one of the duties I shared was preparing a document that was distributed internally both online and in paper format. This document was made every day and comprised world news articles, national news, state news, and any letters to the editor in the 5-10 largest newspapers within the senator's home state that mentioned him by name. I was often the person who put that document on his desk, and it was the first thing he read every morning after arriving to the office.

I began to suspect that this was standard operating procedure because several other senators' offices share the same printer in the basement of the Russell Senate Office building, and I saw other interns doing the exact same procedures that I was involved in. Since the internship, I've conferred with other Senate and House employees past and present and determined that most--if not all--offices use essentially the same procedure.

Edit: I don't mean to suggest that calling or emailing your legislators is worthless. It isn't--it's just not the most effective route to getting their attention. However, if you don't have the time to writer a letter to the editor, please consider at least calling or emailing them. In fact, there's no reason why you couldn't use multiple tactics by calling them, emailing them, and writing a letter to the editor. If you would like to go the call or email route, tools to help with that can be found at https://thedaywefightback.org/"

Why don't we (as the hacker/programmer community) also "fight back" in the meaningful & legal way that is our core strength?

Resolve to push for encryption if there is any PII data in an app that you work with especially if it is a e-mail/mobile/social app. at scale

Refuse to work with/at NSA until their policies change

Refuse to participate in any committee/standards body, conferences, with NSA employees (or their cohort companies who have willingly forsaken the public's interests)

Encourage non-tech folks to adopt stronger privacy practices

etc etc...

My little fight back are some instructions on how to provide your own internet services, including encryption.

http://freedombone.uk.to/

It's not ideal, of course, but in the short term since there seems to be no political appetite for relinquishment or meaningful reform then technical mitigation strategies - if they can be sufficiently popularised - may help to reduce the harm resulting from mass surveillance.

Ultimately the solution is both political and technical. When politicians or other public figures make claims that what's going on is "not mass surveillance" or try to imply that collecting metadata is unimportant then they should be challenged.

I'm amazed that nobody's mentioned the biggest weapon we have against the political class:

Primary elections.

Not the final elections - by then the incumbents are in place and it's too late ... for national office, incumbents resign / die more often than they're beat by an opponent.

Primaries are where the action is, for two reasons:

* it's the one time an incumbent is most vulnerable

* very few people vote in primaries compared to election time, so each person's vote makes a bigger difference

Want change in D.C.? If you primary just 10% of the critters there, you'll get their full, undivided attention.

Yes, emails, letters, and phone calls have an effect. So does K Street. Politicians care about their re-election and money / resources to make it happen, so in the game of influence, I (a normal taxpayer with neither the desire nor the ability to bribe them) will always have the disadvantage. That's why I'd rather fight outside their game - in the primary race.

----------------------------------------

More info:

Yes, these links are from a tea partier perspective, but guess what? The tools they describe work for everybody just the same.

http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2011/09/13/storming-the-...

http://www.campaign4primaryaccountability.org/ One of the organizations in this space; there are others out there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSib8MfaQLQ Leo Linbeck describes the general strategy and how it can work.

I support this effort 100%, but... there's something a bit off about the messaging that I can't quite put my finger on. Perhaps "the day"? This is going to be a long haul, not like killing SOPA or some other bad bill. This system is entrenched, and has a lot of support. It's going to be a long fight, and it's going to be a slog.

For those in the US, though, please do call your representatives.

I honestly think this is naive at best, and at worst useful idiocy on behalf of the companies dependent on the illusion the aim is even achievable.

Mass surveillance, if technically possible, is going to happen. Therefore make services where it isn't possible. If that screws with your business model you're part of the problem.

It seems to be the focus is a lot on the NSA .. The NSA just happens to be the best at what they do. The Brits and Germans are pretty good too. As a Dutchman I know a lot of the HUMANINT stuff here relies on hijacking SQL databases and metasploit, and what is provided from other sources. But everyone is trying to catch up and make friends with ..

We basically need a publicly audited restructuring of our entire communication infrastructure. The problem has grown to such proportions that we now know that we can not trust governing institutions like NIST, or chip manufacturers like Intel for example. What makes matters much worse is that the U.S. government will just keep playing the same card of supposed reforms, while operations will not cease, but instead will do a illusive dance to more black on black policies.

At the same time, public interest in the matter has already massively dwindled due to over saturation in media coverage. While the cointelpro is working hard to dismiss everything as essentials to provide us with a (sense of) security for the global fight of terrorism and crime, apathy will prevail.

Also I'm referring to U.S. policies a lot, since they are the ring leaders and are influencing international policy and operations at the highest level.

But obviously this is a problem across many if not all governments. The nature of intelligence agencies is to gather intelligence by any means. This will never change, never disappear unless we get full transparency on government. Which will never happen due to concerns for national security. And we know where that road will lead to.. ask how Bradly Manning is doing.

So no, I'm a bit too informed, and have become way too cynical to be counting on a revolution any time soon :(

It is a positive day for the freedom of information and I am happy to support it, make the calls and emails, and tell friends about it.

I also think framing it as a one day campaign where the “fighting” involves passive action at the individual level is not a game winning strategy. It is still a great rallying signal though, and its effects have already gone beyond the single day, and for every person too lazy to change their avatar back, they will carry on for a good while longer in some way.

However, the motivation for the average person to even think about engaging such an overwhelming and invisible force as mass surveillance is very close to zero. For those who are willing, involvement seems to be passive (donating to a more capable organization, hitting a like button, resharing links), bursty (waiting for organized events to rally around), or demoralizing (low visibility of opponent, lack of support from uninterested peers or locals, extremely slow and indirect feedback loop for any action).

For these reasons, I hope that a campaign modeled as a constantly running open source game engine emerges, because that is actually just the bare minimum required for victory - to at least continue playing the game as long as your opponent is playing, no matter whether you are winning or losing at the moment.

A game model will at least make undeniably clear that there exists a thing worth playing for (your personal information perhaps), that there are actual opponents who can and will take this thing from you, and the visibility and mechanics needed for you to take action to protect that thing.

As far as I am concerned, fighting back for a day is useless. The NSA is probably going to find they have already lost this battle because we now trust their co-conspirators a lot less. It's the slow, relatively minor pressure over time by billions of people that will change things.

But the real danger is with the next battle. I think we are going to see a major showdown over legality of encryption generally within the next few years with a push for legally required back-doors (since it will be harder to guarantee cooperation unofficially and there is almost certain to be a lot of effort into guaranteeing better security). That's the one we should be steeling ourselves for.

So I won't be participating in this "The Day We Fight Back" not because I think it is unimportant but because I think it is too important than to relegate to a day of action.

I think it's interesting that there are ~200k Twitter/Facebook shares at the time of this comment, but less than 10k calls/emails. The message seems to be, "I think contacting legislators is a great idea! I hope some of my friends do that.."

Hash tags to show support? History is fucking laughing at us today.

I really like the banner, although, in all honesty, I don't think this will have any effect on spying. I truly believe that the NSA cannot be stopped by words alone. People lie all the time. The only thing I think words can do in situations like this is drive it more underground, and make the NSA lie that everything is back to normal...

Presidents lie. Politicians lie.

Now, if every American refuses to work 1 day, and all head to the NSA's office, datacenter (and actually destroy the thing), that'd really mean taking matters into our own hands (extreme scenario, I know). The NSA knew people wouldn't like this, but they did it anyway, because nobody knew. We will never truly have 100% transparency what the NSA is doing. People can no longer trust them. Period.

Please reply to this message with more applications that you find useful.

Self-host your email and keep it secure and encrypted https://www.mailpile.is/

Project Tox, also known as Tox, is a FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) instant messaging application aimed to replace Skype. https://github.com/irungentoo/ProjectTox-Core

Host your own file sync solution http://owncloud.org/

Torproject anonymous surfing https://www.torproject.org/

The invisible internet project http://geti2p.net/en/

GNUnet is a framework for secure peer-to-peer networking https://gnunet.org/

Kali Linux - Linux distribution with security focus http://www.kali.org/

Nothing on this page effectively answers the single most common response to mass surveillance:

"Why should I care if they read my emails? I'm not important and I don't do anything wrong. If it helps them catch terrorists, who cares?"

Until this question is answered clearly and effectively, nobody except all those splinter groups represented by so many logos will care about this.

Snowden, the NSA scandals and the subsequent political and media responses are very clear example of our right eroding. But, they are mostly concerned with the US Government and US citizens.

This is a global fight. The perpetrators and the victims are everywhere.

So the suggestion here is to "fight back" by asking politely the people who are abusing you to please stop.

The Catch-22 is that if I had faith in my fellow Americans, then we would not be sitting in this deep well of depravity.

If you look at where we are, today, as a nation, how can anyone have hope? We're a nation that finds it more politically convenient to kill people by drones than to close Gitmo. We're a nation that, quite probably, kills people by drones simply because our leader promised to close a prison camp that would have normally taken said people, but can't now because it would be too visible and too much of a political issue to have people arriving to a place that is supposed to be closing. So America invents remote-control murder from the sky. You can't deny that we're a crafty, ingenious people.

Today we know that George Carlin was not cynical enough.

Just heard a report on Democracy Now, where the EFF spokeswoman interviewed raised some important points that shouldn't be overlooked regarding privacy rights and when searches take place, &c, but seemed to accept Obama's assertion that they are only looking at collected data when there is cause. From my understanding, that is false. It is probably true that they are only supposed to look at data when there is cause, but the reports of instances of "LOVEINT" - spying on (current, former, or potential) romantic partners - seem to indicate more access, especially the fact that the instances of such abuses as have been found were self-reported (so other misdeeds may very well be going undiscovered).

Great initiative, I've shared & supported it. But is compiling a database of (full) names and email addresses of internet dissidents really wise given that that's the very medium these organisations are abusing?

And would it be enough to deter a significant number of people from putting their details in and showing support?

Why do I have a feeling that this is like changing your Facebook picture because you think it might make a difference?

What disturbs me is not once was Obama's image shown in this video. More than anyone he is the person pressure should be put on to start change(no pun intended).

Before we knew the extent of surveillance we saw images like this of Bush: http://www.funny-games.biz/pictures/648-vampire-bush.html

I never had to go looking for the imagery above during Bush's tenure it was everywhere. Where is it now for the current administration?

Since you guys are reading this, a huge thanks for putting the time and effort in to organize this. Here's hoping you are able to keep that up for the long haul.

The suggested script is kind of awkward if your representative is already supporting the USA Freedom Act. However, even if they are already in support, it seems important to let them know you have their back on this, and that your future support will continue to be contingent on their stance on surveillance-related issues (if indeed it is). I know not of these things from a political angle, but the following seems reasonable to me

1. Start the call by asking if they're cosponsoring of the USA Freedom Act.

2a. If they are not, use the script, it makes sense.

2b. If they are, thank them for their support of this bill. You can also let them know how important these surveillance issues are to you and the extent to which your representative's actions on these matters will affect your behavior at the polls and in donations.

Just a heads up to those planning to call (please do!). I felt kind of silly finding out that the first senator on my list was already a cosponsor after reading through the script, and wanted to save others the minor embarrassment. It should feel good to call your representatives and express your support for such important issues!

That aside, this is a really great campaign. Thank you so much to everyone who put it together and made it happen!!

"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

Senator Robert F. Kennedy, June 6 1966 (South Africa address)

FYI as of 11:30am ET there are approximately 5,000 calls per hour going into Congress right now through this effort. Keep it up everyone!

I'm going to play devil's advocate here and suggest that if political involvement is what we're shooting for, robo-calling your representatives isn't the best way to achieve true reform.

Pissed that the NSA (or insert gov agency here) is running amok? Get involved in your government, vote out the lawmakers who let/made [it] happen, and advocate for and vote in representatives who will invoke the change you want.

Appealing to the public in this manor encourages laziness and while it may be "practical" (as we can't expect everyone to throw themselves into the process) I don't think it's the best long term solution.

Not trying to torpedo this movement but I cringe whenever I see the words "script" when talking about invoking political or societal change.

Oh sod off.

The point about things like this is that by raising awareness and getting people on board to do concrete action, we move the "collective consciousness" in the direction we'd like to see it go. Imagine if 20 years ago everyone had that attitude about gay and lesbian rights. Imagine if 80 years ago everyone had the same attitude about equal rights for minorities.

You people are jackasses. Just because someone can't dedicate their full time job to fighting this doesn't mean they don't care or are lazy. And even if they did dedicate their full time job to it, what exactly do you suggest they do? The first thing that comes to mind to me is that they should start trying to rally others. Which is, as it turns out, exactly what is being done here.

I suppose it's common knowledge now, but a lot of people seem to think a phone call will get more attention then an email in political scenarios.

This is a good initiative, but I still find it depressing that we have to fight entities operating outside the law or in violation of it, using methods strictly within the boundaries of the law. It's not a fair fight and it's not likely to be successful.

Ultimately, uses of technology reflect a society's values. Unfortunately, mass surveillance will be a mainstream value until the fear of terrorism fades. As frustrating as it may be, all the protests in the world won't make these values mainstream.

If the organizers really want to make a difference, the site should replace the words "call and email" with "buy and pay".

Just called my representative of district 7 and told her to support the USA Freedom Act. Hope more people call.

I get the following message when going to the page to email my legislators:

Heroku | No such app

There is no app configured at that hostname. Perhaps the app owner has renamed it, or you mistyped the URL.

First off, way to go with all of this. While I don't believe in "raising awareness" in general, I think this is the best way to keep this in the spotlight.

There's one thing to keep in mind though. I don't think any of us actually hate the NSA (in particular), or your local version. The piece I hate are the policies and their implementation. I'm sure that like all organizations there is some work being done by the NSA/CIA/FBI/KGB.... well maybe KGB was going too far.

I'd love to see links in this thread to the other ways people are supporting the struggle, whether it's blog postings, tumblrs, or something else. In that vein, here's my blog posting:

https://www.lyricalsoftware.com/blog/day-fight-back-panoptic...

I think some people are missing the point, this is clearly intended to raise awareness, nothing more.

I find it a weirdly ironic that a protest opposing government collection of personal information, such as political affiliation, from opt in data stores on the internet consist of declaring your political affiliation in an opt in data store on the internet.

All the logos in the world aren't going to make foreign organizations trust American companies with their data again.

The blow to trust has been struck. Operating a data processing or data storage business inside US jurisdiction is now a liability.

It's time to leave.

I sent an email, but I'm not a fan of the auto-opt-in of the random mailing list.

Nice to see this is now a link at the very top of HN. Well done to everyone involved.

So what I find interesting is that as of 4:38pm EST this page has: * 72,000 tweets * 312,000 FB likes * 21,000 G+ shares

At the same time... there 54,700 calls made and 114,122 emails sent.

The number of social media shares is almost double the number of people that followed through with the "call to action" here. Why?

If you are publicly passionate about the cause, I think you would do both (social media share + contact legislator). If you were privately passionate about the cause, you would just do the later; contact legislator.

But what is your mindset if you share this via social media, yet don't actually follow through with the call-to-action yourself?

In my opinion, the front page should really, really highlight the call-back-and-show-script feature. Sending this out to family and friends, this is the piece I really want them to see.

I'm all for this (fighting back) ... but (and I sincerely don't mean to be cheeky) but how exactly is putting a banner on your website 'fighting back' ?

Question:

What is going to happen with the script after the campaign? https://github.com/tfrce/thedaywefightback.js/issues/98

My personal view: I still don't get why it is bad, #pleasesurveilme --> https://twitter.com/stefek99/status/433307672838819840

Wow, so much negativity here. The whole thing does seem a little disappointing, but we have to start somewhere, don't we?

Added to our (moderately large) site.

I like the idea of the "enter your phone #, we'll call you and show you a script, then connect you".

But I wish there was also a link for a more traditional "here are the phone #s of your representatives and a sample script".

With the latter, I could just print out that page and find a private place at work - away from my desk - to make the brief phone call.

The irony to me is that they have two of the worst offenders when it comes to mass surveillance advertised on the side of the page. Facebook and Google, despite their attempts to say they weren't aware of the NSA gaining access to their info, are probably just as much of a threat to privacy as the NSA total information awareness.

It goes like this: let the private companies run wild when it comes to privacy violations, and then gobble up all their data via national security letters, subpoenas, secret taps via NSA tech, and warrants for higher profile stuff and then only if desperate, and that is assuming an adversarial nature between the private sector and the government. In fact the C-levels are often directly approached and goaded into silently and secretly cooperating. (and if they refuse, ala Quest, they get targeted by the system)

Of course there is the matter that it is governments who will take the surveillance information and then act upon it, making them the slightly more evil evil in the room, but that does not negate the issue of private sector mass surveillance that is for sale to the highest bidder.

I've been one of those who has ranted about the dangers of the NSA since the late 90's, and now that it's a mainstream issue, it seems to have taken on a "oh yeah, the NSA is bad! stop that surveillance" kind of hipster social wave that lacks any kind of detailed nuance or explores the origins and destinations of this admittedly huge issue.

Yes, the surveillance is unconstitutional. So have been many of the other activities our American oligarchic powers have been engaged in over the past decade, including the assassination of American citizens without due process.

All of these things point to a much more deeply rooted issue than simply "surveillance", namely, that our fundamental governmental structure is in ruins as a result of a combination of corruption and apathy that has gutted the already precariously positioned checks and balances system.

Russ Tice has said he held in his hand the wiretap papers for a then hopeful senator from IL, who happens to now be in the Whitehouse. Are we really so naive as to think that Obama is clean coming from such a notoriously corrupt political arena? The intelligence agencies have been using the same techniques for ages, namely, bribery and threats. Russ Tice has also said he held in his hands the papers for judges who now sit on the SCOTUS, and FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds has a source who was responsible for vetting potential judges (up to SCOTUS level), and according to her, he said that anytime a judge came up clean, he was immediately removed from the roster of potentials. The implication being that only controllable people are allowed.

The point is that all three branches of government are corrupt and no longer (if ever, don't mistake that phrase for golden day idealism) functioning as servants of the people and defenders of the constitution (I wonder what the legal importance of oaths really is these days, because I seem to be surrounded by oath-breakers(USMC combat vet)).

And of the three branches, it is the executive which lords it's power over the other two.

The really sad part is that it seems to be the private sector which lords power of the executive. This is the trail of breadcrumbs that truly concerned people need to start discussing, researching, and following. It's very difficult to do. It's hard to track down the global supranational corporate structure. I am still often referencing this paper: http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1107/1107.5728v2.pdf

Oh, and as far as technological surveillance goes, there are two main starting points. 1) open source EVERYTHING (especially our trackers ahem cellphones) 2) decentralize everything possible. That is how we gain control of our data back... but that's becoming more and more difficult.

Honestly, I think RMS was simply a man far ahead of his time, and the history books (if he isn't wiped from their pages) will refer to him as a visionary in a sea of overly pragmatic corporatists who failed to see the big picture.

I could go on quite a bit about this, but that's where I'll leave it for now.

Including a third party javascript to protest and spread awareness about mass surveillance... That seems a little ironic.

I'm not getting any feedback in Chrome or Firefox (Mac OS X) that my signature has been registered... what a shame!

Great to see this being done. I wonder what number of emails a typical member of Congress must receive before they take note of an issue. Furthermore, how many emails does it take to sway their opinion on said issue, or are dollars the only medium that can induce the wild thought of reevaluating one's perspective.

"THE DAY WE FIGHT BACK AGAINST MASS SURVEILLANCE" ... by entering your phone number and email address. LOL!

Odd. The call count seems to go up and down with every refresh.

Also, when you call the 202 number instead of having it call you, you the message talks about something related to the trans-Atlantic partnership, not the NSA issue.

Thanks for putting this together. I called and was pleased with the experience. Really hope some good comes of this.

Posted this up on our Meetup Group & sent out an e-mail to ask members to participate. One person left the group due to this. Funny thing is, she works for Cloudera!

http://www.meetup.com/Coders-Hackers-Founders/

It is treat as a "Tin Hat" issue, or a Occupy Wall Street movement. The people in my circle (several hundred) see this as a non-issue.

We have an issue of education and clear message. Especially how this counters the Constitution.

Maybe a push for everyone to read "1984" :)

Let's all add an external javascript file to our site, that will sure stop the tracking.

The privacy policy link (international version) points to a page written in Serbian. For a campaign all about privacy, really surprised about this. Sorry, I can't give you my name and email if I can't read your privacy policy.

I wish the "send email" button is more responsive, or at least shows some kind of progress. Clicked once and nothing happened so I thought I misclicked or missed and clicked a few times more, resulting in 6 emails. womp womp!

I don't see the point, so what if legislation is changed, the NSA and all the other clandestine agencies will operate outside of the law because they are untouchable.

Might just as well play flappy bird instead, it will do about as much good.

I felt compelled to give a fake address for fear of automated reprisal. If the NSA builds up enough of an anti-surveillance (in their minds anti-American) dossier on me, I could be added to the no-fly list or worse.

How much traffic can your infrastructure handle?

Would it be too much to ask for an easy to clone repo (github?) that would allow one to serve the content directly rather than by including some 3rd party javascript widget?

Calling it fighting is a bit of stretch, if you're still paying taxes.

I called the three New Mexico lawmakers through the tool, and was able to reach human beings at all of the offices (Senators Heinrich and Udall and Representative Luján). Thanks for making it so easy!

Asking politicians who have broken laws in secrecy to stop being secretive and stop breaking laws isn't going to work. The only useful course of action is to vote them all out of office.

So...the number it tells me to dial (202) 999-3996 tells me I'm calling to fight the Fast Track for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. This isn't related...could someone fix this?

So this is an NSA honeypot to collect email addresses... right?

Great idea for the Call Congress feature.... however when I tried it would not accept my zip code. I hit 9-8- "Sorry we don't recognize your zip code"

Man I wish campaigns like this would happen for issues I care more about. For example, guantanamo bay or climate change or corrupt elections, etc

Can we be a little more digitally violent in our protest?

For example, crowdsourced black hat hacking bad links to any companies funding NSA loving politicians?

Should be a year of fighting back and it should be 2015 and we should plan the hell out of it to the point of people fearing it.

Why not just demand that the NSA to be disbanded?

I mean... does anyone have any evidence to indicate that we need it?

Oh, a flash protest, one that seems to have been announced with a press release only yesterday and pushed by the EFF just one hour ago.

Well, it is too short notice for me to invest the time to black out my website, so I will not be supporting this. Maybe there will be a similar action next year that I will support, if it is better advertised beforehand.

I would make the source code for the android and iPhone apps available.

Looking at results, it could be: "...the day we step back."

I used my zipcode in AZ and it worked great.

Hilarous, homus lupi est. Homus spy est.

This gave me a chance to collect my thoughts. I sent the following email to my representatives. Thanks, Sina, for your role in organizing this.

---

I think I understand what is going on. The folks at the top look at all the huge centralized information stores like Facebook, Google, Verizon, etc., and I guess they think, "well, it's gonna get collected anyway, so we may as well have access to it." President Obama actually hinted at this line of thinking when initially caught off-guard by the Snowden revelations. Instead of responding directly, he deflected, suggesting that what we really needed was a larger conversation about mass collection of data, i.e. not just the collection by governments.

The trouble with mass data collection, either by governments or private entities, is that it gives the possessors of such information extreme amounts of power. Left unchecked, it will almost certainly lead to severe economic and political corruption. The free market is compromised when a small group of people can spy on the private communications of executives and other business people, for example by stealing trade secrets or conducting insider trading. Meanwhile, democracy is compromised when politically active people, including politicians and activists, are made subject to intense scrutiny. Since virtually no one is totally free from legal or moral wrongdoing, the possibilities for politically motivated blackmail and retaliation are massive. And of course the data collection has serious chilling effects on free speech and freedom of the press.

If no course correction is made, the U.S. will become more and more oligarchic, more and more like China and Russia. This is unfortunate not just for its implications vis-a-vis individual freedom, but also from a larger perspective. This century we are faced with a diverse array of extremely difficult problems: economic, political, social, and environmental. Non-democratic governments have a historical tendency to fight with one another rather than cooperate, so it is hard to imagine how we will effectively confront these problems in the absence of strong democratic institutions.

What worries me is that some of the people in positions of power may actually believe that this massive data collection is somehow necessary to protect Americans from terrorism. But it is patently obvious that terrorism is not, and never has been, a serious threat to the personal safety of most Americans. Over the past two decades, something on the order of 800,000 men, women and children have died in car crashes, while around 3,000 have died as a result of terrorism. If this were a matter of saving lives, we'd be much better off fighting a "War on Car Crashes" than a "War on Terrorism." If this is purportedly an economic issue, i.e. the fear that a dirty bomb will go off in Manhattan and upset commerce, well, the fact is much worse things have happened (i.e. Hiroshima) and economies have recovered. This perspective may sound cynical, but in truth it is idealistic. I am not dismissing the tragedy of the death of perhaps thousands of people, but rather saying that, for the sake of a free and democratic society, such sacrifice is worthwhile.

The idea that "collection is going to happen anyway, so we may as well have access" is not unreasonable, but it is ultimately self-defeating. What we need is real leadership on this problem. Not only is there no strong voice against mass data collection, but the overwhelming thrust of the government is to reach its tentacles as deeply into the data gathering machine as possible. Instead of working to lessen the danger, the government is acting to accentuate it, amassing and centralizing even more data, and meanwhile using its media access to legitimize such activities to the public.

Again, what is needed is strong leadership. We need a group of people at the highest levels of federal power to put up a fight in congress and explain clearly to the American people why, in fact, we are on a very dangerous road. If not corrected for, this road will lead to the end of the democratic experiment, and a very uncertain future for our children. I hope that you, as my elected representative, will seriously consider taking a stand on this issue.

Just one day?

Distributed Denial of Misservice Attack

Meanwhile in the NSA canteen: "and then they said 'today we fight back' and this time they REALLY meant it, they even had banners you could copy on your website!" massive laughter

Gotta love slacktivism.

You want to fight back? Turn off Google services, MSFT services, Facebook, Youtube, Yahoo, DDG, Reddit, Tumblr, etc. for a day, that'll raise awareness like never before. But all these companies don't really care, do they? A day's worth of profit is more important.

I got HN upvote nr. 1337!

That means my petition signature will hold a special weight.

Surely this site has been set up by the NSA to harvest the details of everyone who opposes them...?