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Rally Against Mass Surveillance Livestream [video]

sinak 13y ago
Really proud to be a part of this. Also, a group of HN users (taskforce.is) built the StopWatching website. Big shoutout to Thomas Davis and Beau Gunderson for a load of hard work on the site.
- sinak 13y ago
  Better quality livestream on C-SPAN: http://www.c-span.org/Events/Group-Holds-Rally-Against-Mass-Surveillance/10737442319-1/ http://www.c-span.org/Events/Group-Holds-Rally-Against-Mass-...
- thomasfromcdnjs 13y ago
  It has been my pleasure! Also a thank you to tintup.com for sponsoring this great event feed -> http://www.tintup.com/thomasdavis-1382673881 http://www.tintup.com/thomasdavis-1382673881
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
kefs 13y ago
I'm ecstatic for the awareness this rally brings, but I just find it odd that the site itself has plenty of tracking beacons which directly report visits back to companies complicit in what they're protesting against. http://i.imgur.com/SePrtYk.png http://i.imgur.com/SePrtYk.png The tracking beacons on all the sponsor companies' sites also confuse me.
- eternalban 13y ago
  Chairman Meow was the first to figure this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign
  - judk 13y ago
    Chairman Meow is someone else http://www.vivachairmanmeow.com/ http://www.vivachairmanmeow.com/
ta223 13y ago
Let's see who's watching us on stopwatching.us: dig MX stopwatching.us | grep -c google.com >>> 6 curl https://rally.stopwatching.us/ |grep -c 'google.*\.com' >>> 6 curl https://rally.stopwatching.us/ |grep -c facebook.com >>> 1 curl https://rally.stopwatching.us/ |grep -c youtube.com >>> 0 curl https://rally.stopwatching.us/ |grep -c youtube-nocookie.com >>> 1 hey, at least someone /thought/ about it curl https://rally.stopwatching.us/ |grep -c typekit.net >>> 1 curl https://rally.stopwatching.us/ |grep -c twitter.com >>> 5 curl https://rally.stopwatching.us/ |grep -c cloudflare.com >>> 3 The list goes on... EDIT: I should note that these could be harmless <a...> links, but most aren't, and I'm too lazy to update the regexes and rerun. You get the point though.
- frank_boyd 13y ago
  Seriously. Why does every website come with 10thousand f#cking scripts loaded in the background? I hate this. Host your own goddamn js, fonts and whatnot.
  - ta223 13y ago
    Amen brother, amen!
  - ryanSrich 13y ago
    Most arguments for CDNs are based in speed. The only one from that list that would make sense to host yourself would be the video from YouTube.
    - ta223 13y ago
      Quite the opposite. The video -- because it's huge compared to JS, CSS, etc. -- /does/ make sense to host on YouTube. The /player/ does not belong embedded in the page though. Take a screenshot, host that on your own crummy web server, and link to YouTube, ideally with a notice to the effect of "Clicking this link will share your information with YouTube..."
- gavinpc 13y ago
pinaceae 13y ago
a live video stream, global, for a demo against being watched. i am posting my entire life on the internet for anyone to see, how dare you look at me.
elwell 13y ago
My non-trolling question is: why should I care about suspicionless surveillance? I really want to have a solid list of reasons (preferably in single sentences to force clarity). So far, in this debate, I haven't been bothered at all by the surveillance discoveries.
- thomasfromcdnjs 13y ago
  Slate did an article for this question. http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/09/20/how_to_tell_your_mother_and_bosses_why_they_should_protest_surveillance.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/09/20/how_to_te...
- frank_boyd 13y ago
  When you'll have finished high school, you'll understand. If you already have, you should have a serious word with your headmaster.
- AnthonyMouse 13y ago
  If you want a single sentence, I've heard a quote recently (I'm not sure of the source), but here it is: If knowledge is power then the corollary is necessarily that privacy is freedom. We can unpack that some, because it turns out that it's supported by evidence. Studies have shown that people who know they are under surveillance change their behavior. They don't challenge the status quo or participate in creative destruction because they fear being punished for it. In general, mass surveillance is a tool for the few to control the many. It allows government officials to destroy popular movements by detecting and disrupting them early in their evolution before they gain enough political power to stand on their own. Governments engaging in this sort of political espionage is a historical fact. Take the analogy of the federal government issuing every member of the NYPD a Humvee and a machine gun, in case they have to fight Taliban insurgents on the streets of New York. Doing so is hugely objectionable, not because we like the Taliban, but because the number of Taliban in New York is small and the number of innocent civilians is large, so the innocent civilians become by far the largest category of individuals who end up eating one of those bullets. That's the problem with mass surveillance. Government surveillance is a tool of destruction. The reason the NSA is engaged in this surveillance isn't so that they can send you a reminder when you forget to pick up your kid from soccer practice, it's so that they know where to send soldiers to destroy the enemy. But when 99.99% of the people under surveillance are upstanding citizens, what you have is a powerful weapon which we leave sitting around idle just waiting for corruption to take root and redefine who the enemy is.
tshile 13y ago
I'm glad there is public awareness and debate on the issue, but I find it troubling that there is severe lack of contribution to the debate (can we even call it that at this point?) from the NSA's part. I think it's in error to assume that there is nothing positive the NSA gets from this in terms of protecting the country, or maybe more specifically that the NSA has a vested interest in knowing the mundane details of the average citizen's life. I'm as curious as the next person about how what they do is constitutional under the 4th amendment. I'm as against the idea of a police state, and am concerned about the direction of this country in a post-9/11 world as those at the protest. But there's two sides to every issue (often more), and on this one all we get is a bunch of awful PR that has to be walked back. I don't think it's a 100% useless and/or nefarious operation. Is there nothing positive the NSA/US Government can tell us about these tactics that wont compromise their mission?
- candydance 13y ago
  >Is there nothing positive the NSA/US Government can tell us about these tactics that wont compromise their mission? They probably think that they can just stay silent and the public outrage will quietly sizzle out. It's certainly looking like that stance will be justified.
MisterWebz 13y ago
So how's the turnout? Couldn't really figure it out from the livestream.
- sinak 13y ago
  We don't have an official estimate yet, but our guesses are between 2,500 on the low side and 4,000 on the high.
mtgx 13y ago
I like the logo of the t-shirts.
nhaehnle 13y ago
Some food for thought about who is organizing this rally: http://www.salon.com/2013/10/21/dont_ally_with_libertarians_ideologues_co_opt_an_anti_nsa_rally/ http://www.salon.com/2013/10/21/dont_ally_with_libertarians_... It's a difficult topic, of course. Opponents of libertarians are quick to point out that the libertarian agenda leads into quite the dystopia. In particular, on the topic of surveillance, it seems fairly clear that at least the hardcore libertarians (in the direction of anarcho-capitalists and the like) are actually happy with surveillance - as long as it is done by private companies and not by the state. Now these groups are co-opting or even running this campaign which is ostensibly against mass surveillance. That seems something right out of the libertarian propaganda playbook (for a recent collection of quotes out of this playbook, see here: https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/lying-to-liberals/ https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/lying-to-liberals/). On the other hand, protesting mass surveillance is still a worthy cause. I am not a USian myself, and I can't really tell where I would land on this issue (support stopwatching.us or not) if I were, but it's an important issue to think about.
- jasonkolb 13y ago
  What we really need is a political movement based only on a very few things that we can all agree on. Leave economics, morals, guns, abortion, and everything else completely out of the story and focus on one or two core issues. Like upholding and strengthening the Bill of Rights.
  - lkbm 13y ago
    Guns are clearly part of the Bill of Rights, and the SC had ruled the same of abortion.
- gojomo 13y ago
  The Salon writer seems angry that libertarian-ish organizations are even listed as allies or allowed to participate in the event. Apparently, shunning libertarian-leaners as if they were 'unclean' takes an even higher precedence than opposing illegal mass surveillance. It's almost like how hard-core racist movements consider 'one drop' of disfavored ancestry as contaminating. In the real world of people who aren't professional ideologues, it's good to work with people on common projects even when there are severe disagreements elsewhere. Appearing together doesn't imply any general endorsement, or risk any sort of infection by diabolical libertarian heresies.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
jasonkolb 13y ago
I would like to salute the people who are willingly putting themselves on all kinds of lists by being here. I would be there as well if it were practical for me.

sinak 13y ago

Really proud to be a part of this. Also, a group of HN users (taskforce.is) built the StopWatching website. Big shoutout to Thomas Davis and Beau Gunderson for a load of hard work on the site.

sinak 13y ago
Better quality livestream on C-SPAN: http://www.c-span.org/Events/Group-Holds-Rally-Against-Mass-Surveillance/10737442319-1/ http://www.c-span.org/Events/Group-Holds-Rally-Against-Mass-...
thomasfromcdnjs 13y ago
It has been my pleasure! Also a thank you to tintup.com for sponsoring this great event feed -> http://www.tintup.com/thomasdavis-1382673881 http://www.tintup.com/thomasdavis-1382673881
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

kefs 13y ago

I'm ecstatic for the awareness this rally brings, but I just find it odd that the site itself has plenty of tracking beacons which directly report visits back to companies complicit in what they're protesting against. http://i.imgur.com/SePrtYk.png http://i.imgur.com/SePrtYk.png The tracking beacons on all the sponsor companies' sites also confuse me.

eternalban 13y ago
Chairman Meow was the first to figure this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign
- judk 13y ago
  Chairman Meow is someone else http://www.vivachairmanmeow.com/ http://www.vivachairmanmeow.com/

ta223 13y ago

Let's see who's watching us on stopwatching.us: dig MX stopwatching.us | grep -c google.com >>> 6 curl https://rally.stopwatching.us/ |grep -c 'google.*\.com' >>> 6 curl https://rally.stopwatching.us/ |grep -c facebook.com >>> 1 curl https://rally.stopwatching.us/ |grep -c youtube.com >>> 0 curl https://rally.stopwatching.us/ |grep -c youtube-nocookie.com >>> 1 hey, at least someone /thought/ about it curl https://rally.stopwatching.us/ |grep -c typekit.net >>> 1 curl https://rally.stopwatching.us/ |grep -c twitter.com >>> 5 curl https://rally.stopwatching.us/ |grep -c cloudflare.com >>> 3 The list goes on... EDIT: I should note that these could be harmless <a...> links, but most aren't, and I'm too lazy to update the regexes and rerun. You get the point though.

frank_boyd 13y ago
Seriously. Why does every website come with 10thousand f#cking scripts loaded in the background? I hate this. Host your own goddamn js, fonts and whatnot.
- ta223 13y ago
  Amen brother, amen!
- ryanSrich 13y ago
  Most arguments for CDNs are based in speed. The only one from that list that would make sense to host yourself would be the video from YouTube.
  - ta223 13y ago
    Quite the opposite. The video -- because it's huge compared to JS, CSS, etc. -- /does/ make sense to host on YouTube. The /player/ does not belong embedded in the page though. Take a screenshot, host that on your own crummy web server, and link to YouTube, ideally with a notice to the effect of "Clicking this link will share your information with YouTube..."
gavinpc 13y ago

pinaceae 13y ago

a live video stream, global, for a demo against being watched. i am posting my entire life on the internet for anyone to see, how dare you look at me.

elwell 13y ago

My non-trolling question is: why should I care about suspicionless surveillance? I really want to have a solid list of reasons (preferably in single sentences to force clarity). So far, in this debate, I haven't been bothered at all by the surveillance discoveries.

thomasfromcdnjs 13y ago
Slate did an article for this question. http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/09/20/how_to_tell_your_mother_and_bosses_why_they_should_protest_surveillance.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/09/20/how_to_te...
frank_boyd 13y ago
When you'll have finished high school, you'll understand. If you already have, you should have a serious word with your headmaster.
AnthonyMouse 13y ago
If you want a single sentence, I've heard a quote recently (I'm not sure of the source), but here it is: If knowledge is power then the corollary is necessarily that privacy is freedom. We can unpack that some, because it turns out that it's supported by evidence. Studies have shown that people who know they are under surveillance change their behavior. They don't challenge the status quo or participate in creative destruction because they fear being punished for it. In general, mass surveillance is a tool for the few to control the many. It allows government officials to destroy popular movements by detecting and disrupting them early in their evolution before they gain enough political power to stand on their own. Governments engaging in this sort of political espionage is a historical fact. Take the analogy of the federal government issuing every member of the NYPD a Humvee and a machine gun, in case they have to fight Taliban insurgents on the streets of New York. Doing so is hugely objectionable, not because we like the Taliban, but because the number of Taliban in New York is small and the number of innocent civilians is large, so the innocent civilians become by far the largest category of individuals who end up eating one of those bullets. That's the problem with mass surveillance. Government surveillance is a tool of destruction. The reason the NSA is engaged in this surveillance isn't so that they can send you a reminder when you forget to pick up your kid from soccer practice, it's so that they know where to send soldiers to destroy the enemy. But when 99.99% of the people under surveillance are upstanding citizens, what you have is a powerful weapon which we leave sitting around idle just waiting for corruption to take root and redefine who the enemy is.

tshile 13y ago

I'm glad there is public awareness and debate on the issue, but I find it troubling that there is severe lack of contribution to the debate (can we even call it that at this point?) from the NSA's part. I think it's in error to assume that there is nothing positive the NSA gets from this in terms of protecting the country, or maybe more specifically that the NSA has a vested interest in knowing the mundane details of the average citizen's life. I'm as curious as the next person about how what they do is constitutional under the 4th amendment. I'm as against the idea of a police state, and am concerned about the direction of this country in a post-9/11 world as those at the protest. But there's two sides to every issue (often more), and on this one all we get is a bunch of awful PR that has to be walked back. I don't think it's a 100% useless and/or nefarious operation. Is there nothing positive the NSA/US Government can tell us about these tactics that wont compromise their mission?

candydance 13y ago
>Is there nothing positive the NSA/US Government can tell us about these tactics that wont compromise their mission? They probably think that they can just stay silent and the public outrage will quietly sizzle out. It's certainly looking like that stance will be justified.

MisterWebz 13y ago

So how's the turnout? Couldn't really figure it out from the livestream.

sinak 13y ago
We don't have an official estimate yet, but our guesses are between 2,500 on the low side and 4,000 on the high.

mtgx 13y ago

I like the logo of the t-shirts.

nhaehnle 13y ago

Some food for thought about who is organizing this rally: http://www.salon.com/2013/10/21/dont_ally_with_libertarians_ideologues_co_opt_an_anti_nsa_rally/ http://www.salon.com/2013/10/21/dont_ally_with_libertarians_... It's a difficult topic, of course. Opponents of libertarians are quick to point out that the libertarian agenda leads into quite the dystopia. In particular, on the topic of surveillance, it seems fairly clear that at least the hardcore libertarians (in the direction of anarcho-capitalists and the like) are actually happy with surveillance - as long as it is done by private companies and not by the state. Now these groups are co-opting or even running this campaign which is ostensibly against mass surveillance. That seems something right out of the libertarian propaganda playbook (for a recent collection of quotes out of this playbook, see here: https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/lying-to-liberals/ https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/lying-to-liberals/). On the other hand, protesting mass surveillance is still a worthy cause. I am not a USian myself, and I can't really tell where I would land on this issue (support stopwatching.us or not) if I were, but it's an important issue to think about.

jasonkolb 13y ago
What we really need is a political movement based only on a very few things that we can all agree on. Leave economics, morals, guns, abortion, and everything else completely out of the story and focus on one or two core issues. Like upholding and strengthening the Bill of Rights.
- lkbm 13y ago
  Guns are clearly part of the Bill of Rights, and the SC had ruled the same of abortion.
gojomo 13y ago
The Salon writer seems angry that libertarian-ish organizations are even listed as allies or allowed to participate in the event. Apparently, shunning libertarian-leaners as if they were 'unclean' takes an even higher precedence than opposing illegal mass surveillance. It's almost like how hard-core racist movements consider 'one drop' of disfavored ancestry as contaminating. In the real world of people who aren't professional ideologues, it's good to work with people on common projects even when there are severe disagreements elsewhere. Appearing together doesn't imply any general endorsement, or risk any sort of infection by diabolical libertarian heresies.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

jasonkolb 13y ago

I would like to salute the people who are willingly putting themselves on all kinds of lists by being here. I would be there as well if it were practical for me.