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I don't think it matters what the government says about this from here on out. They've shown the depth of their ambitions; they want and will get records about

I don't think it matters what the government says about this from here on out. They've shown the depth of their ambitions; they want and will get records about every communication we have. They've been caught in multiple lies, and we can expect that we will never hear the whole truth on this issue. They are doing whatever they want to do, legal or not, and we can't stop them. We can all now safely assume that if we have unencrypted electronic communications (phones included), the full contents of those communications will be stored somewhere and made available to government agents should we come under suspicion for anything. Plan accordingly.

pvnick 13y ago
I think we can stop them if we stand united in defiance. Look what we accomplished with SOPA/PIPA - they were on the verge of passing and we demolished those bills. Just some efforts off the top of my head: -Restore the Fourth (reddit.com/r/restorethefourth) is a planned nationwide mass demonstration to protest privacy encroachments -Mozilla/Reddit/EFF/etc - http://stopwatching.us http://stopwatching.us is going to be sending hundreds of thousands of emails to representatives on citizens' behalf over the next couple weeks. In fact I'm currently contributing dev time to this one, and we really could use some more developers to do everything we want to do. If anybody wants to help "code for freedom" (I just made that up) please email me at pvnick@gmail.com Don't make the mistake of thinking you're powerless because you're not. We still live in a representative democracy, and most of our leaders do actually care what their constituents think, it just doesn't seem that way sometimes.
- ihsw 13y ago
  The difference is there wasn't a decade of infrastructure built around SOPA/PIPA (technological, social, political, economic, etc) however now there is -- the Obama Administration's staunch resistance and the mainstream-media's support is evidence of this. Even now the UK Government is seeking to duplicate the NSA's efforts because they see the writing on the wall that things may go south, so even if we act now then it'll effectively be a whack-a-mole game that will last for a long time coming. We can stop them now in the US but we'll have to expand our efforts globally.
  - pvnick 13y ago
    Daniel Ellsberg (the famous pentagon papers whistleblower) recently stated "With Edward Snowden having put his life on the line to get this information out ... I see the unexpected possibility of a way up and out of the abyss." [1] Now is the time to act. We have the option to succeed, but only if we really want to. [1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/10/edward-snowden-united-stasi-america http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/10/edward-s...
- icelancer 13y ago
  >Look what we accomplished with SOPA/PIPA - they were on the verge of passing and we demolished those bills. This is a common, yet unlikely sentiment. I would strongly bet the billions of dollars representing anti-SOPA claims (Google, Wikipedia, etc) were way more influential than ordinary middle class citizens. Not that protesting and the like isn't worth doing. But it is best to be realistic.

pvnick 13y ago

I think we can stop them if we stand united in defiance. Look what we accomplished with SOPA/PIPA - they were on the verge of passing and we demolished those bills. Just some efforts off the top of my head: -Restore the Fourth (reddit.com/r/restorethefourth) is a planned nationwide mass demonstration to protest privacy encroachments -Mozilla/Reddit/EFF/etc - http://stopwatching.us http://stopwatching.us is going to be sending hundreds of thousands of emails to representatives on citizens' behalf over the next couple weeks. In fact I'm currently contributing dev time to this one, and we really could use some more developers to do everything we want to do. If anybody wants to help "code for freedom" (I just made that up) please email me at pvnick@gmail.com Don't make the mistake of thinking you're powerless because you're not. We still live in a representative democracy, and most of our leaders do actually care what their constituents think, it just doesn't seem that way sometimes.

ihsw 13y ago
The difference is there wasn't a decade of infrastructure built around SOPA/PIPA (technological, social, political, economic, etc) however now there is -- the Obama Administration's staunch resistance and the mainstream-media's support is evidence of this. Even now the UK Government is seeking to duplicate the NSA's efforts because they see the writing on the wall that things may go south, so even if we act now then it'll effectively be a whack-a-mole game that will last for a long time coming. We can stop them now in the US but we'll have to expand our efforts globally.
- pvnick 13y ago
  Daniel Ellsberg (the famous pentagon papers whistleblower) recently stated "With Edward Snowden having put his life on the line to get this information out ... I see the unexpected possibility of a way up and out of the abyss." [1] Now is the time to act. We have the option to succeed, but only if we really want to. [1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/10/edward-snowden-united-stasi-america http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/10/edward-s...
icelancer 13y ago
>Look what we accomplished with SOPA/PIPA - they were on the verge of passing and we demolished those bills. This is a common, yet unlikely sentiment. I would strongly bet the billions of dollars representing anti-SOPA claims (Google, Wikipedia, etc) were way more influential than ordinary middle class citizens. Not that protesting and the like isn't worth doing. But it is best to be realistic.