Reddit, Mozilla to stage Fourth of July protest against NSA spying

http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/308931-reddit-mozilla-and-privacy-groups-to-launch-protests-against-nsa-surveillance-programs

by blueveek • 13 years ago

245 43 13 years ago

thehill.com

mtgx• 13 years ago

I'm surprised Wikipedia isn't participating in at least putting a call to action to call your representatives like they did with SOPA last time. I'm not surprised Google isn't doing it, because I expected as much from them this time around, but I'm disappointed. It seems they only participate in these actions when there's immediate gain for them (like not passing SOPA, or ITU's "sender pays" policy). I just hope they realize that we might not be "available" to help them next time they need the public's support for something.

richardwhiuk• 13 years ago

Wikipedia has to pass a fine line of trying not to involve itself in politics, unless it's a clear threat to it's ability to it's job, and it's not clear that surveillance (even on such a broad scale) prevents it building an encyclopaedia.

belorn• 13 years ago

Wikipedia could argue that people will self-censor themselves and thus avoid looking up information on Wikipedia related to illnesses, sexual topics and so on. Its the same argument libraries has when claiming peoples library card history is protected.

jgrahamc• 13 years ago

I'm not. If you go the the site (CallForFreedom.org) that is the rallying point you get:

"America has violated its founding principles. The Constitution says government can't spy on us-- not without suspicion. But now, thousands of government employees at the NSA and other agencies track our phones and read our emails. The government is dangerously trespassing on our rights. How can free speech, free association, or a free press survive when everyone is always being watched, even in their most private moments?"

Wikipedia etc. would probably only get behind something that was not limited to providing a benefit to US citizens alone. SOPA mattered to Wikipedia because it would have affected their ability to provide the service they provide globally.

gailees• 13 years ago

The surveillance state has struck them with fear.

sentenza• 13 years ago

After reading the article, I am slightly disappointed. This is about banners on homepages, not people carrying signs through the streets. Please don't underestimate what actual protest in the streets can do, especially if it appears in unexpected places or in unexpected social circles.

And don't think that there is no precedent for street protests against internet policies either. Remember that the turning point for ACTA was the moment when the people of Poland took it to the streets. [1]

[1] http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=n&prev=...

tokenizer• 13 years ago

http://www.restorethefourth.net/

There will be protests on the 4th of July as well in many US cities. Maybe other countries will protest in solidarity as well, like in the occupy protests, but we won't be sure what happens until the 5th of July.

lucasjans• 13 years ago

All the links on that site 404 for me. Where can I get details on the San Francisco protest?

dllthomas2• 13 years ago

Protest in every venue you have available.

bad_user• 13 years ago

Don't underestimate what media exposure can do.

With ACTA, Europeans were already warm because of SOPA / the Internet blackout - and because the blackout was a big thing that impacted regular people, it was all over the news, yes in Europe.

rjv• 13 years ago

Exactly how effective will an online protest be on a day that so many people spend outdoors; away from their computers/devices?

PavlovsCat• 13 years ago

There is only one way to find out..

jasonlotito• 13 years ago

Exactly how effective will an offline protest be on a day that so many people will spend online, still using their computers and devices?

http://www.restorethefourth.net/

Do not assume one precludes the other.

dgunn5• 13 years ago

Is anyone else still trying to understand the goal here? I know the big lofty goal is to cause NSA to stop spying on people but what will convince people that they have stopped?

Is everyone unaware that the NSA's mission is to collect digital intelligence through clandestine means? It's right on their website. Their mission is to spy on people and has been for decades.

I may be unaware of what people are really upset about. I just can't understand how people are so up in arms by this. I'm legitimately interested in how I'm affected by this as a person who doesn't conduct activity online that the NSA would ever care about. Can someone help me out here?

33274• 13 years ago

YES the NSA's mission is to spy. We are fine with that but NOT domestically. We are not fine with that.

In the borders of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA according to the 4th Amendment of te UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION domestic spying is not legal.

1: NSA should be subject to accountability like everyone in this country 2: All NSA activities should be restricted to foreign intelligence gathering.

This is the jist of it.

ajuc4• 13 years ago

So existence of organisation with particular goal is good enough reason to pursue that goal, no matter if its ethical or no?

Seriously Americans, what's wrong with you?

dgunn5• 13 years ago

One, I don't think the NSA isn't allowed to spy domestically. The NSA is charged with collecting foreign and counter intelligence in an effort to protect the interests of the US. If there is an intelligence need which requires domestic collection methods, you better believe they are allowed, by law, to collect.

Even if they weren't allowed to spy domestically, I'm not convinced that would be an appropriate limitation on the NSA. They are the best at this type of intelligence collection. As long as the US has enemies within it's own borders, tying the hands of people who can help us is going to be a pretty bad idea.

dllthomas2• 13 years ago

Not all of us are "fine with that"; we've just agreed to focus primarily on the bits where we have the broader support.

kcorbitt• 13 years ago

dgunn, what a lot of people are upset over isn't necessarily that the government is recording a lot of conversations per se. It's the fact that this program is constitutionally and ethically questionable and that it was enacted without any public debate or supervision whatsoever. America behaves in some ways like a democracy, and big issues like this deserve to be discussed and weighed in the public forum.

In general, the government taking powers and responsibilities upon itself without a public discussion tends to be a bad deal for everyone. We've all lived under presidents that we didn't particularly like or trust. If we let the executive branch off the hook for behaving this way that reinforces executive independence and gives more legitimacy to the next guy, who we may like even less, to do something even worse.

There are exceptions, explicit and implied, to this process for states of emergency when decisive action needs to be taken immediately. But it's untenable to claim that America has been in a continuous state of emergency for the past twelve years and that there hasn't been a moment to step back and evaluate where we're at -- and where we're going.

grey-area2• 13 years ago

I'm legitimately interested in how I'm affected by this as a person who doesn't conduct activity online that the NSA would ever care about. Can someone help me out here?

Sure, here's a little hypothetical story:

2014 arrives, and your information is being stored indefinitely. Let's say you're interested in comics and you store some on your github account. One of those comics is V for Vendetta or some other innocuous story. You delete the comics pretty quickly, so after a few months there's nothing there, but the record stays because the file was once transmitted. Nobody cares at this point, but the information is stored.

2015, and your phone records are used to pinpoint your location at a known collection point for subversives (a comic shop). Known terrorist symphasers used this shop as a meeting point in 2013 and 2015 (animal rights terrorists), which puts you with them. You're now on a watch list along with 10 million other Americans - no-one is ever taken off the list once they go on.

2018 arrives, with a new president who's hard on security and terrorism and subversive literature is banned, including some strange titles like the bomb-makers handbook. You're not too worried about this, as who would read that sort of thing, right? Unknown to you, one of your students has been reading it, and shared the link to you on a page linked in an email, so that link goes in your file. The student also voices subversive thoughts to you, and you don't report them.

2020 arrives, and more materials judged subversive are banned, including certain comics judged too subversive and supportive of terrorism. Due to advances in storage tech and analysis, the NSA can now go back to 2014, and every year after, and see exactly what banned information you've been trafficking in, along with analysing documents linked in emails, and your location at every point in your life. 100 million Americans are now on the list, because so many subversives are being found with the new technology. It seems there are a lot of enemies within. The new president is worried and orders more surveillance.

2022, and you are pulled in for questioning due to your suspicious profile. No matter how you protest your innocence, it seems no-one will listen - the facts are just too damning, and your lawyer can't find you because your arrest was secret. You're just another traitor and terrorist sympathiser. You end up in a black site for 5 years, and are released a broken man.

The technical advances to make this possible are just developing, but it will soon be a reality, so I do believe we need restrictions on the collection and storage of this sort of information - it's just not good enough to leave that decision to the intelligence services, because they will naturally want to keep everything, and analyze everything, and grow their power. We need a check on that power which is not technical but enshrined in law - at present those laws are being ignored.

pyre• 13 years ago

  | We need a check on that power which is not
  | technical but enshrined in law - at present
  | those laws are being ignored.

We need to fix the problem of laws being ignored with another law?

jdp23• 13 years ago

The July 4th demonstrations seek to demand an end to the unconstitutional surveillance methods employed by the U.S. government and to ensure that all future government surveillance is constitutional, limited, and clearly defined.

More spefically, three points are called out in Restore the Fourth's press release, on StopWatching.us's site, and in an open letter that 80+ groups including EFF, BORDC, etc. signed on to:

1. Enact reform this Congress to Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, the state secrets privilege, and the FISA Amendments Act to make clear that blanket surveillance of the Internet activity and phone records of any person residing in the U.S. is prohibited by law and that violations can be reviewed in adversarial proceedings before a public court;

2. Create a special committee to investigate, report, and reveal to the public the extent of this domestic spying. This committee should create specific recommendations for legaland regulatory reform to end unconstitutional surveillance;

3. Hold accountable those public officials who are found to be responsible for this unconstitutional surveillance.

33274• 13 years ago

Great points and clear explanation.

We (I) are not against the NSA spying as some people think. Thats their job and we need it because everyone spies. Espionage is a way of life for every country.

1. The constitution cannot be violated 2. Accountability

And to make myself clear, I don't like guns or ever used them but If need be I would also stand for the second amendment. I would stand for every amendment in the constitution for that matter.

If leaders think they can bend the rules here and there than we are no longer a nation that stands on the shoulders of giants that sacrificed their lives so YOU and I could stand here say what we want, do what we want. Remember all these people lived and they died forming this country from ashes:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

lifeguard2• 13 years ago

Useful info for street protests:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5984651

jadeddrag• 13 years ago

Great idea in the comments about switching your phone to airplane mode.

lifeguard2• 13 years ago

This is not necessary. There are numerous cameras in all public spaces. Better to leave phone on for communications. Better yet, install live stream or ustream:

http://www.ustream.tv/new

http://new.livestream.com/

mrweasel2• 13 years ago

I have a hard time taking Mozilla serious in this case.

If Mozilla where really against the NSA spying they would all their users to easily remove any Google ( and other third party ) services from Firefox. I understand why they won't, it would mean taking a financial hit, if I understand they business model.

It's not that it is "Googles fault", they are force to work with the NSA. However having services from a company known to work with the NSA so deeply embedded into your product weakness the impact of your resistance to the NSA surveillance program.

PhineasRex• 13 years ago

I do not see how they have made it difficult to remove Google. One setting in about:config does the trick.

mrweasel2• 13 years ago

I think there where 5 or 6 places Google appeared last time I checked. Also about:config isn't really user friendly.

malandrew• 13 years ago

Mozilla can do more good taking Google's money and using it to fund decentralization and anti-surveillance features. They have enough market share and clout to bring things to the mass market.

I would most like to see them champion putting in a DHT service in Firefox, where decentralized networks can be "registered". The user just needs to confirm that they want their browser to function as a regular node or supernode for service X, Y and Z and they are now serving information for networks X, Y and Z everywhere. A generic DHT running everywhere that any network requiring decentralized discover can be used for a Skype-like WebRTC directory, torrents decentralization, DNS alternative, etc.

tn13• 13 years ago

As a non-american I wonder if Mozilla and others are against all spying of NSA or just Spying of American citizens.

Reddit, Mozilla to stage Fourth of July protest against NSA spying

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