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Join the largest online protest since SOPA to stop NSA spying

386 points by sinak 13y ago

forgottenpaswrd 13y ago
Please change the title: "stop NSA spying" is like "stop using condoms for having sexual relationships" "Stop massive surveillance" , or "control NSA abuses" are probably better.
- ihsw 13y ago
  'Stop suspicionless surveillance' is probably what you're looking for. In countries like Afghanistan with numerous independent terrorist factions, 'massive' surveillance is an inevitability.
  - rdl 13y ago
    I'd use the phrase "unwarranted", since there's both the plain-language meaning of unnecessary or unjustified, and the legal meaning of a warrant ("and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized").
    - dllthomas 13y ago
      or "unreasonable"
tomelders 13y ago
For UK readers, here's two related petitions calling on Parliament to launch inquiries. http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/51959 http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/51959 http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/51392 http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/51392 Please sign. And as always, email your MP. http://www.writetothem.com http://www.writetothem.com
- orta 13y ago
  One of the best places to get information on your MP in the UK is http://www.theyworkforyou.com http://www.theyworkforyou.com
- FridayWithJohn 13y ago
  Just signed... let's hope this does something. Sometimes I think the mass protests done in Egypt recently will be the only way our government actually listens
  - bayesianhorse 13y ago
    I try not to judge people, but in this case I have to judge this opinion to be wrong and harmful. Egypt's mass protests are something completely different. They had reasons which are some orders of a magnitude more grave. With that kind of turnout, voters in the US could change this policy using only normal "democratic" channels...
    - tomelders 13y ago
      I have to agree with you. It seems the sickness in the UK at least is that everyone complains that it's not a democracy, but very few people actively engage in it. I don't know anyone other then myself who'd ever written to an MP to ask a question, challenge an idea or simply register their concerns. You can't say they don't listen if you don't try to talk to them. That's not to say everything is hunky dory. But it's far from too late for people to pull their socks up and take on the responsibility of forcing their elected representatives to act on their behalf.
    - etherael 13y ago
      How? By voting for the other party that also supports and implements the exact same fascist legislation? I don't understand why people still have faith in the political process despite the abundance of evidence indicating it's a cryptofascist illusion.
- MarcScott 13y ago
  Thanks for these links. Feeling a little impotent here in the UK, but happy now that I can voice my concerns.
waxjar 13y ago
That's all very nice, but what about the rest of the world?
- tomelders 13y ago
  I don't know, what about the rest of the world...? It's in your hands.
- mtgx 13y ago
  Contact your MEPs in EU, and local politicians: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/map.html;jsessionid=58BBE89182228F053E5A5666295130D6.node2 http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/map.html;jsessionid=58...
- dllthomas 13y ago
  My POV is that we should be respecting the rights of all people everywhere, and protecting the rights of Americans. I think that a government that is not constrained by its own laws, however, is a substantially more dangerous thing, and is the point we need to be most particularly addressing before moving on to other (also important!) things like what we do to the rest of you. If the NSA doesn't listen when we tell them not to spy on us (which we've more or less already told them), telling them not to spy on you isn't going to mean much.
detcader 13y ago
How has Reddit "signed on"? Their userbase is one of the biggest on that list but they didn't change their homepage at all..
- betawolf33 13y ago
  There was mention of the listed companies matching donations from the public towards television adverts against the suspicionless surveillance. Perhaps that's what they mean. However, I agree that Reddit in particular could be doing more to spread the word. People are calling this the 'largest online protest since..' but I'm not actually seeing much in the way of protest. I'm skeptical that those not interested in the subject are seeing anything.
  - Semaphor 13y ago
    Ads for it are plastered all over the site & they made a blog post.
- sixothree 13y ago
  NSA collaborators...
  - bayesianhorse 13y ago
    Not like they have a choice...
Avalaxy 13y ago
Is this for United Statians only, or can we (Europeans) sign it too to let the US government know that we're tired of their shit?
- logn 13y ago
  They ask for an address and zip code. As long as you don't indicate a false zip code I don't think it would bother anyone. I'm sure politicians will be reviewing this to see public sentiment and if there's a bunch of known bad data clouding the results, it would probably be taken less seriously.
- Sharlin 13y ago
  We should let our elected representatives in the EU know we're tired of this shit. It's almost certain that the signals intelligence agencies all around Europe have known about the deal for a long time and have been actively exchanging information with the NSA. Most agencies also have their own programs in place not at all unlike the NSA's, and probably with just as little parliamentary supervision.
- notatoad 13y ago
  I think the US government has made it very clear that they couldn't care less what you think if you aren't a citizen.
- embolism 13y ago
  Make your own country aware that you are tired of it's own shit. Seriously, it's going to be easier for us in the US to effect change if other countries dismantle their own programs too.
run4yourlives 13y ago
Online Protest == Can't be bothered to actually do something meaningful to register my outrage. Sorry, but change means getting off your fat ass.
- d0m 13y ago
  "Like" if you want to stop NSA spying!
- llamataboot 13y ago
  Agree with the sentiment about the (lack of) effectiveness of online petitions. Disagree with the meaningless swipe at overweight people as lazy, etc.
- actionscripted 13y ago
  #4 FTA: "Take to the streets to defend the Fourth Amendment."
- dobbsbob 13y ago
  Media is a sucker for anything social media, they would probably run a longer news segment on this online protest than they would chaos in the streets. Last workers riot where I live the media solely concentrated on how they were caught from facebook and other social media profiles, they hardly mentioned the reasons for the rioting.
  - tossmeup 13y ago
    And the media is the next best thing to an online petition surrounded by ads... ephemeral bullshit to hold attention while we show you commercials. If they aren't afraid of you burning down their palace, they are not about to change. Why do people in the US think that change comes from meaningless, one-click bullshit? In Egypt, the military says GTFO. In Syria, they can take up arms and say GTFO and have it not work. You didn't see arabs using twitter for the "retweet this if you want change." It was the get over to street a and b and mob. Peaceful sit-ins on unused public land, out of the way of the entrenched interests is something to lampoon... nothing to be afraid of. You can't put a poster of Ghandi up on the wall and be taken seriously. Peaceful resistance is standing in the way of the tank and letting the entrenched powers present themselves to the horror of the world. They will either turn popular sentiment strongly enough that they are taken away, changed, of they will stand down from stupidity. It's like not forcing legislators to actually filibuster on their feet. Tweet-it-in resistance is worthless. Stand up, step in, and cross the line if you mean it. Otherwise STFU and GTFO.
dutchbrit 13y ago
They won't change, they'll just try to keep it more secret and deny everything... Pointless petition if you ask me, even though I think people should be fighting against it.
Carlee 13y ago
Can't Britain revoke America's government until they figure this out?
- Sharlin 13y ago
  Why would they? They knew about this (at least to some extent) and were/are actively cooperating.
medde 13y ago
If only the president would be held accountable for his promises, we would not be having this discussion (PATRIOT Act).
graycat 13y ago
I suspect that the politicians in Congress are still of the same mind they were when they passed the Patriot Act, etc. to begin with: They want to be seen as doing something so that when there is another attack, e.g., the Boston bomber, no political opponent can get votes screaming "soft on terrorism". The politicians are trying to cover their asses (CYA). That situation hasn't changed. For violating the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution, the politicians are willing to do that to CYA. Yes, the Patriot Act, etc. are likely unconstitutional, and voters can scream that to the politicians, but the politicians still just want to CYA against another Boston bomber or a charge of "soft on terrorism". But the US founding fathers saw this situation: Someone with 'standing' brings a legal case, and eventually the case makes it to the Supreme Court of the US (SCOTUS) which can accept the case and rule on the constitutionality of the laws. So, the politicians just took advantage of this solution and hit the ball, the hot potato Cthey didn't want to handle, across the street to the SCOTUS. Standing? Maybe 120 million Verizon customers have standing. Maybe there is a huge class action suit on behalf of all US Internet users. And apparently Google has started a suit. So, maybe there are enough suits with standing. Then if the SCOTUS strikes down the Patriot Act, etc., the politicians can blame the SCOTUS and still have their CYA. Uh, politicians tend to be 'chicken hawks': Talk like a hawk (tough on terrorism), walk like a chicken (CYA). "Peck a little. Talk a little. Peck a little. Talk a little. Peck, peck, peck, talk a little more." -- extra credit for the source!
- jivatmanx 13y ago
  "But the US founding fathers saw this situation: Someone with 'standing' brings a legal case, and eventually the case makes it to the Supreme Court of the US" Thomas Jefferson opposed the creation of the supreme court in Marbury vs. Madison. Madison was his secretary of state. Here is his reasoning: "You seem to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps.... Their power [is] the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves" It's difficult to consider the counter-factual of the court not being created and common law having been continued, but it's useful to understand that there was opposition, and why, so that if you support it, you can use this knowledge to make it better. In more modern times, partisanship does seem to be a problem, with many of the most important decisions are made 5-4 on party lines. As you have brought up, another problem is that, contrarily, that it may be that the supreme court isn't actually not be powerful enough. If the U.S. is using the U.K. to spy on Americans, isn't that a blatant end-run around the constitution? But where can standing be, if legal opinions are based on secret courts, and gag orders are imposed on everything? At the same time, it's not "Just the supreme court's" job to uphold the Constitution. Ultimately, it's the people's, and our most direct representatives are the House. They take an oath to uphold the responsibility, and they can't simply subcontract it, it doesn't work that way.
tzs 13y ago
I don't trust these people. They were prominent in the CISPA argument, pushing infographics with claims that didn't match the bill, asking for donations and email addresses. Now here they are on this issue, with a prominent donate button, and asking for your email. The put the email request in the middle of a form asking for name and address. They need the later because they are writing Congress on your behalf. They do not need your email for that, and so putting the email in the middle of that form smacks of a trick to get you onto their mailing list.
- brilee 13y ago
  If you want to help people organize and get together without being underhanded, you're more than welcome to set up your own organization.
- johnbm 13y ago
  Last time I found an anti-SOPA site that said "Enter your email address and location and we'll send you information tailored to your area." That is, it was placed to suggest you'd get information right now, about how to help with the campaign. Of course, it was a complete lie. You were just added to their mailing list, and all you received was a message confirming that.
zby 13y ago
The Pirate Parties in Europe made this page: http://antiprism.eu/ http://antiprism.eu/
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
nobleach 13y ago
The only reason anything happened with SOPA is not because we somehow showed the government that the people didn't want it. It's because we threatened the business that supported it with lost profits. All of their lobbyists were the ones that decided that one. It's a bit more difficult to do that with the NSA. It's not like the federal government looks out the window and says, "what do the citizens want?" these days. It's more like, "what can we get away with?"
- eksith 13y ago
  There's still a way around that. The NSA was able to do what they do by and large with the cooperation of very powerful businesses. Now it may not be as easy to do without some of these as opposed to, say ESPN, but it can be done if people are willing to accept certain sacrifices. And we know most people won't.
- rz2k 13y ago
  I have a difficult time accepting that as a narrative for what happened to prevent SOPA from becoming law, and am not sure what the implications are for the constellation of topics surrounding privacy and secretive agencies compelling cooperation. To start of with, (1) I don't think that Google et al were intimidated by users' potential wrath in the face of SOPA passing, and (2) do not think that lobbyists countering those in favor of the legislation had any notable effect. To the first part, few people said they were threatening to boycott Google or Facebook, and their threats would not have been credible. Additionally, the list of companies who eventually came out against SOPA do not spend very much on lobbying. SOPA might have been a help to incumbent market participants, because while it would have been feasible for them to implement protections, it would have been an enormous barrier to entry for any new competitors based on user-generated content. So, I agree that it is surprising that they eventually came out against SOPA, and that it may have been for the sake of public relations as much as for sincere ideological compatibility. And yet, still, many of the most powerful lobbies have influence through the large number of members who follow through when the group decides to send letters expressing outrage about some pet issue as much as from financial power, which is ultimately used for financing ads in attempt to influence people's votes. Anyway, I'd encourage people to watch one of the talks Aaron Swartz gave on the subject,[1] where he specifically talks about the unprecedented number of calls into Congress and how surprised people on the Hill were about seomthing that seemed to come out of nowhere. There is no argument that those in favor of SOPA blamed the overwhelming popular reaction on Google and others somehow bamboozling people, but they aren't arguing that it wasn't the popular reaction that mattered. Of course, they also can't explain why Google cared more about SOPA than people who would eventually be the source of that user-generated content that SOPA would block. Anyway, that's a long way at getting to what may really matter when it comes to privacy and the ability of people to communicate with eachother off-the-record. So far the equation most politicians must see is that they will be blamed whenever a future attack occurs if they stood up against something advocated by people deep in national security. It would be interesting to see a poll of people who came out against SOPA, since I think it was a pretty nuanced issue. Unfortunately, the value of privacy seems like a pretty nuanced issue as well. In one sense, it doesn't limit you to be patted down in the airport, but it does to have all of your conversations recorded and on record. And yet, the former is the one most likely to upset many people. While I thought SOPA would prevent innovation on the internet, I think that the repository of communication will become increasingly dangerous as computing power progresses and data analysis methods improve. Since all progress, whether it is sociological or technological necessarily involves change, there will be established powers that have an interest in being able to use that repository to impede progress. Anyway, I think it is counter productive to achieving public policy aims to treat the hurdles as insurmountable and ignore the successes of popular constituencies of all types. There would be no history because nothing would ever change if everything were the results of infallible puppetmasters. On a more philosophical level, I suppose the argument to be made is that there will be a lot of change in the future, and that while some disasters will definitely occur, past trends certainly suggest that that things generally improve over time. In other words, even if the shutdown of free, unfettered, unrecorded communication prevented some disasters, it would come at the expense of limiting progress as well once better and better analytics make it a better tool for sabotaging change. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgh2dFngFsg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgh2dFngFsg
HannibalLecter 13y ago
Let's make No Such Agency, no such agency.
thesmileyone 13y ago
If EVERYONE ON THE PLANET signed it, they would carry on doing it anyway.

386 points by sinak 13y ago

Please change the title: "stop NSA spying" is like "stop using condoms for having sexual relationships" "Stop massive surveillance" , or "control NSA abuses" are probably better.

ihsw 13y ago
'Stop suspicionless surveillance' is probably what you're looking for. In countries like Afghanistan with numerous independent terrorist factions, 'massive' surveillance is an inevitability.
- rdl 13y ago
  I'd use the phrase "unwarranted", since there's both the plain-language meaning of unnecessary or unjustified, and the legal meaning of a warrant ("and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized").
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    or "unreasonable"

tomelders 13y ago

For UK readers, here's two related petitions calling on Parliament to launch inquiries. http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/51959 http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/51959 http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/51392 http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/51392 Please sign. And as always, email your MP. http://www.writetothem.com http://www.writetothem.com

orta 13y ago
One of the best places to get information on your MP in the UK is http://www.theyworkforyou.com http://www.theyworkforyou.com
FridayWithJohn 13y ago
Just signed... let's hope this does something. Sometimes I think the mass protests done in Egypt recently will be the only way our government actually listens
- bayesianhorse 13y ago
  I try not to judge people, but in this case I have to judge this opinion to be wrong and harmful. Egypt's mass protests are something completely different. They had reasons which are some orders of a magnitude more grave. With that kind of turnout, voters in the US could change this policy using only normal "democratic" channels...
  - tomelders 13y ago
    I have to agree with you. It seems the sickness in the UK at least is that everyone complains that it's not a democracy, but very few people actively engage in it. I don't know anyone other then myself who'd ever written to an MP to ask a question, challenge an idea or simply register their concerns. You can't say they don't listen if you don't try to talk to them. That's not to say everything is hunky dory. But it's far from too late for people to pull their socks up and take on the responsibility of forcing their elected representatives to act on their behalf.
  - etherael 13y ago
    How? By voting for the other party that also supports and implements the exact same fascist legislation? I don't understand why people still have faith in the political process despite the abundance of evidence indicating it's a cryptofascist illusion.
MarcScott 13y ago
Thanks for these links. Feeling a little impotent here in the UK, but happy now that I can voice my concerns.

waxjar 13y ago

That's all very nice, but what about the rest of the world?

tomelders 13y ago
I don't know, what about the rest of the world...? It's in your hands.
mtgx 13y ago
Contact your MEPs in EU, and local politicians: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/map.html;jsessionid=58BBE89182228F053E5A5666295130D6.node2 http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/map.html;jsessionid=58...
dllthomas 13y ago
My POV is that we should be respecting the rights of all people everywhere, and protecting the rights of Americans. I think that a government that is not constrained by its own laws, however, is a substantially more dangerous thing, and is the point we need to be most particularly addressing before moving on to other (also important!) things like what we do to the rest of you. If the NSA doesn't listen when we tell them not to spy on us (which we've more or less already told them), telling them not to spy on you isn't going to mean much.

detcader 13y ago

How has Reddit "signed on"? Their userbase is one of the biggest on that list but they didn't change their homepage at all..

betawolf33 13y ago
There was mention of the listed companies matching donations from the public towards television adverts against the suspicionless surveillance. Perhaps that's what they mean. However, I agree that Reddit in particular could be doing more to spread the word. People are calling this the 'largest online protest since..' but I'm not actually seeing much in the way of protest. I'm skeptical that those not interested in the subject are seeing anything.
- Semaphor 13y ago
  Ads for it are plastered all over the site & they made a blog post.
sixothree 13y ago
NSA collaborators...
- bayesianhorse 13y ago
  Not like they have a choice...

Avalaxy 13y ago

Is this for United Statians only, or can we (Europeans) sign it too to let the US government know that we're tired of their shit?

logn 13y ago
They ask for an address and zip code. As long as you don't indicate a false zip code I don't think it would bother anyone. I'm sure politicians will be reviewing this to see public sentiment and if there's a bunch of known bad data clouding the results, it would probably be taken less seriously.
Sharlin 13y ago
We should let our elected representatives in the EU know we're tired of this shit. It's almost certain that the signals intelligence agencies all around Europe have known about the deal for a long time and have been actively exchanging information with the NSA. Most agencies also have their own programs in place not at all unlike the NSA's, and probably with just as little parliamentary supervision.
notatoad 13y ago
I think the US government has made it very clear that they couldn't care less what you think if you aren't a citizen.
embolism 13y ago
Make your own country aware that you are tired of it's own shit. Seriously, it's going to be easier for us in the US to effect change if other countries dismantle their own programs too.

run4yourlives 13y ago

Online Protest == Can't be bothered to actually do something meaningful to register my outrage. Sorry, but change means getting off your fat ass.

d0m 13y ago
"Like" if you want to stop NSA spying!
llamataboot 13y ago
Agree with the sentiment about the (lack of) effectiveness of online petitions. Disagree with the meaningless swipe at overweight people as lazy, etc.
actionscripted 13y ago
#4 FTA: "Take to the streets to defend the Fourth Amendment."
dobbsbob 13y ago
Media is a sucker for anything social media, they would probably run a longer news segment on this online protest than they would chaos in the streets. Last workers riot where I live the media solely concentrated on how they were caught from facebook and other social media profiles, they hardly mentioned the reasons for the rioting.
- tossmeup 13y ago
  And the media is the next best thing to an online petition surrounded by ads... ephemeral bullshit to hold attention while we show you commercials. If they aren't afraid of you burning down their palace, they are not about to change. Why do people in the US think that change comes from meaningless, one-click bullshit? In Egypt, the military says GTFO. In Syria, they can take up arms and say GTFO and have it not work. You didn't see arabs using twitter for the "retweet this if you want change." It was the get over to street a and b and mob. Peaceful sit-ins on unused public land, out of the way of the entrenched interests is something to lampoon... nothing to be afraid of. You can't put a poster of Ghandi up on the wall and be taken seriously. Peaceful resistance is standing in the way of the tank and letting the entrenched powers present themselves to the horror of the world. They will either turn popular sentiment strongly enough that they are taken away, changed, of they will stand down from stupidity. It's like not forcing legislators to actually filibuster on their feet. Tweet-it-in resistance is worthless. Stand up, step in, and cross the line if you mean it. Otherwise STFU and GTFO.

dutchbrit 13y ago

They won't change, they'll just try to keep it more secret and deny everything... Pointless petition if you ask me, even though I think people should be fighting against it.

Carlee 13y ago

Can't Britain revoke America's government until they figure this out?

Sharlin 13y ago
Why would they? They knew about this (at least to some extent) and were/are actively cooperating.

medde 13y ago

If only the president would be held accountable for his promises, we would not be having this discussion (PATRIOT Act).

graycat 13y ago

I suspect that the politicians in Congress are still of the same mind they were when they passed the Patriot Act, etc. to begin with: They want to be seen as doing something so that when there is another attack, e.g., the Boston bomber, no political opponent can get votes screaming "soft on terrorism". The politicians are trying to cover their asses (CYA). That situation hasn't changed. For violating the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution, the politicians are willing to do that to CYA. Yes, the Patriot Act, etc. are likely unconstitutional, and voters can scream that to the politicians, but the politicians still just want to CYA against another Boston bomber or a charge of "soft on terrorism". But the US founding fathers saw this situation: Someone with 'standing' brings a legal case, and eventually the case makes it to the Supreme Court of the US (SCOTUS) which can accept the case and rule on the constitutionality of the laws. So, the politicians just took advantage of this solution and hit the ball, the hot potato Cthey didn't want to handle, across the street to the SCOTUS. Standing? Maybe 120 million Verizon customers have standing. Maybe there is a huge class action suit on behalf of all US Internet users. And apparently Google has started a suit. So, maybe there are enough suits with standing. Then if the SCOTUS strikes down the Patriot Act, etc., the politicians can blame the SCOTUS and still have their CYA. Uh, politicians tend to be 'chicken hawks': Talk like a hawk (tough on terrorism), walk like a chicken (CYA). "Peck a little. Talk a little. Peck a little. Talk a little. Peck, peck, peck, talk a little more." -- extra credit for the source!

jivatmanx 13y ago
"But the US founding fathers saw this situation: Someone with 'standing' brings a legal case, and eventually the case makes it to the Supreme Court of the US" Thomas Jefferson opposed the creation of the supreme court in Marbury vs. Madison. Madison was his secretary of state. Here is his reasoning: "You seem to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps.... Their power [is] the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves" It's difficult to consider the counter-factual of the court not being created and common law having been continued, but it's useful to understand that there was opposition, and why, so that if you support it, you can use this knowledge to make it better. In more modern times, partisanship does seem to be a problem, with many of the most important decisions are made 5-4 on party lines. As you have brought up, another problem is that, contrarily, that it may be that the supreme court isn't actually not be powerful enough. If the U.S. is using the U.K. to spy on Americans, isn't that a blatant end-run around the constitution? But where can standing be, if legal opinions are based on secret courts, and gag orders are imposed on everything? At the same time, it's not "Just the supreme court's" job to uphold the Constitution. Ultimately, it's the people's, and our most direct representatives are the House. They take an oath to uphold the responsibility, and they can't simply subcontract it, it doesn't work that way.

tzs 13y ago

I don't trust these people. They were prominent in the CISPA argument, pushing infographics with claims that didn't match the bill, asking for donations and email addresses. Now here they are on this issue, with a prominent donate button, and asking for your email. The put the email request in the middle of a form asking for name and address. They need the later because they are writing Congress on your behalf. They do not need your email for that, and so putting the email in the middle of that form smacks of a trick to get you onto their mailing list.

brilee 13y ago
If you want to help people organize and get together without being underhanded, you're more than welcome to set up your own organization.
johnbm 13y ago
Last time I found an anti-SOPA site that said "Enter your email address and location and we'll send you information tailored to your area." That is, it was placed to suggest you'd get information right now, about how to help with the campaign. Of course, it was a complete lie. You were just added to their mailing list, and all you received was a message confirming that.

zby 13y ago

The Pirate Parties in Europe made this page: http://antiprism.eu/ http://antiprism.eu/

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

nobleach 13y ago

The only reason anything happened with SOPA is not because we somehow showed the government that the people didn't want it. It's because we threatened the business that supported it with lost profits. All of their lobbyists were the ones that decided that one. It's a bit more difficult to do that with the NSA. It's not like the federal government looks out the window and says, "what do the citizens want?" these days. It's more like, "what can we get away with?"

eksith 13y ago
There's still a way around that. The NSA was able to do what they do by and large with the cooperation of very powerful businesses. Now it may not be as easy to do without some of these as opposed to, say ESPN, but it can be done if people are willing to accept certain sacrifices. And we know most people won't.
rz2k 13y ago
I have a difficult time accepting that as a narrative for what happened to prevent SOPA from becoming law, and am not sure what the implications are for the constellation of topics surrounding privacy and secretive agencies compelling cooperation. To start of with, (1) I don't think that Google et al were intimidated by users' potential wrath in the face of SOPA passing, and (2) do not think that lobbyists countering those in favor of the legislation had any notable effect. To the first part, few people said they were threatening to boycott Google or Facebook, and their threats would not have been credible. Additionally, the list of companies who eventually came out against SOPA do not spend very much on lobbying. SOPA might have been a help to incumbent market participants, because while it would have been feasible for them to implement protections, it would have been an enormous barrier to entry for any new competitors based on user-generated content. So, I agree that it is surprising that they eventually came out against SOPA, and that it may have been for the sake of public relations as much as for sincere ideological compatibility. And yet, still, many of the most powerful lobbies have influence through the large number of members who follow through when the group decides to send letters expressing outrage about some pet issue as much as from financial power, which is ultimately used for financing ads in attempt to influence people's votes. Anyway, I'd encourage people to watch one of the talks Aaron Swartz gave on the subject,[1] where he specifically talks about the unprecedented number of calls into Congress and how surprised people on the Hill were about seomthing that seemed to come out of nowhere. There is no argument that those in favor of SOPA blamed the overwhelming popular reaction on Google and others somehow bamboozling people, but they aren't arguing that it wasn't the popular reaction that mattered. Of course, they also can't explain why Google cared more about SOPA than people who would eventually be the source of that user-generated content that SOPA would block. Anyway, that's a long way at getting to what may really matter when it comes to privacy and the ability of people to communicate with eachother off-the-record. So far the equation most politicians must see is that they will be blamed whenever a future attack occurs if they stood up against something advocated by people deep in national security. It would be interesting to see a poll of people who came out against SOPA, since I think it was a pretty nuanced issue. Unfortunately, the value of privacy seems like a pretty nuanced issue as well. In one sense, it doesn't limit you to be patted down in the airport, but it does to have all of your conversations recorded and on record. And yet, the former is the one most likely to upset many people. While I thought SOPA would prevent innovation on the internet, I think that the repository of communication will become increasingly dangerous as computing power progresses and data analysis methods improve. Since all progress, whether it is sociological or technological necessarily involves change, there will be established powers that have an interest in being able to use that repository to impede progress. Anyway, I think it is counter productive to achieving public policy aims to treat the hurdles as insurmountable and ignore the successes of popular constituencies of all types. There would be no history because nothing would ever change if everything were the results of infallible puppetmasters. On a more philosophical level, I suppose the argument to be made is that there will be a lot of change in the future, and that while some disasters will definitely occur, past trends certainly suggest that that things generally improve over time. In other words, even if the shutdown of free, unfettered, unrecorded communication prevented some disasters, it would come at the expense of limiting progress as well once better and better analytics make it a better tool for sabotaging change. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgh2dFngFsg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgh2dFngFsg

HannibalLecter 13y ago

Let's make No Such Agency, no such agency.

thesmileyone 13y ago

If EVERYONE ON THE PLANET signed it, they would carry on doing it anyway.