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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 companie

• mkl 13y ago
  (My comment here is about the international version of the site - the USA one is much clearer in its purpose.) One crucial piece of information I haven't been able to find is what happens to the names and email addresses people enter. How does filling in those boxes amount to taking action? I am strongly opposed to mass surveillance, but thedaywefightback.org doesn't seem to be communicating successfully how exactly it is going to help. If it is doing something that will truly help (which seems likely, but I can't really tell), that needs to be clear in its message, and it isn't.
  • sinak 13y ago
    That's a really valid criticism, we're just pushing some changes that we hope address those concerns (will be up in about 10 minutes). Edit: Changes are up. It's not perfect, but hopefully it addresses some of your concerns.
  • insider03 13y ago
    Your point is very good! It needs to be specified how our signatures will help in the fight against mass surveillance. We signed, and now what? Spread the word. But what is next?
    • motters 13y ago
      I think the solution to this has to be on multiple fronts. It would be a good idea to push for laws which forbid certain kinds of surveillance. In the US the situation with the constitutionality of the NSA activity needs to be clarified. In the UK it would appear that the activities of GCHQ - particularly using DDoS and other "dirty" methods - is against the existing computer misuse laws. Investigating and following up on that would be useful. Probably they will make all of that retroactively legal, but there might be an opportunity to challenge and stop that in parliament. On the technical front if you're a software engineer you can spend some of your time helping to develop, test and debug the various encrypted communication systems. Often security audits are needed. If you're not a software engineer then find out how to use encryption tools - PGP, XMPP/OTR, Tor, Bitmessage, etc and encourage your friends to use them.
  • dannyeff 13y ago
    Hey mkl, So they'll be a shorter version of this on the main site soon, but I can spell it out at greater length and more informally here. (I'm EFF's International Director, btw) The short answer is that you're signing your support for a set of 13 principles on the application of human rights to communications surveillance ( see https://necessaryandproportionate.net/ https://necessaryandproportionate.net/ ), that were worked out last year (pre-Snowden, actually) by a coalition of technologists, privacy activists, and legal scholars. The long answer: We've been using this language to push the idea in international venues and among key lawmakers in various countries that mass surveillance (as well as a bunch of other practices conducted by the NSA and other spooks, including corruption of crypto standards and backdoors) is a violation of existing human rights standards. This is important internationally because if the NSA gets away with its current behaviour, it'll establish a norm that such surveillance is okay for any government to conduct. We need to push back against that norm. To do so, diplomats, policymakers and others need language and arguments to back that up. The Principles give them that language in a familiar context (and we're working together to provide more detailed arguments and other legal guides). It has found favor among politicians, experts and other influential people I think partly because the smarter ones are genuinely worried that pervasive surveillance really could undermine their own societies -- they recognise what it could do in the wrong hands as much as anyone else. In providing that leverage, it helps to convey that it's not just a bunch of domain experts that think forbidding mass surveillance is a bad idea, but that an increasingly large number of citizens find it abhorrent. That's what the signatures will do. It really makes a difference in this arena, because so few obscure technical documents have hundreds of thousands of supporters :) I'd encourage anyone who wants to understand better how we're trying to get all governments, not just the US, to craft better surveillance legislation to read the full text of the principles at https://necessaryandproportionate.net/text https://necessaryandproportionate.net/text You can also ask me questions at danny@eff.org . It's a long haul project, and we're conducting it alongside legal actions in the US and abroad, shoring up and disseminating crypto tools, and other non-policy defences. But it's pretty amazing to get unanimity with hundreds of privacy groups on some basic principles with which to start building proper, 21st century, surveillance law.
    • lifeisstillgood 13y ago
• mjolk 13y ago
  "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." Why do you feel this is the most impactful thing that [I] can do? Specifically, do you believe that putting a banner on webpages will prompt more phone calls to legislators, which will in turn lead to the reduction of surveillance? The video is heavy handed (actors and names-the-common-person-would-know with sweeping music) saying that surveillance is bad, but it's never clearly articulated _why_ one should believe that data mining by the government is wrong (besides unqualified claims of it being unconstitutional and against imagined civil liberties). I personally think that there's risk in allowing a government to harvest and store data indefinitely (primarily because an unscrupulous politique could perform a character assassination to push a narrative), but I'm not the target audience for this advertisement.
• dushyant 13y ago
  %29
  • sinak2 13y ago
    I switched into writing Markdown by accident. We've got the site frontend running on jekyll so it's static and easy to scale, and I've gotten too used to using the syntax. I can't edit that comment any more (time expired), but the correct link is https://whispersystems.org https://whispersystems.org
• epaga 13y ago
  Assuming these comments are being watched. The "thirteen principles" link on the main page gives a 404, it looks like there was a copy/paste error, it goes to: https://thedaywefightback.org/international/”https://necessaryandproportionate.net/text” https://thedaywefightback.org/international/”https://necessa...
  • sinak 13y ago
    Fixed. Thanks :).
    • epaga 13y ago
      excellent! well, i guess i played my part in the fight against surveillance today. ;)
      • chris_wot 13y ago
        Your comments were being watched.
        • rschmitty 13y ago
          Everyone's comments were being watched, now he's been escalated to a contributor and added targeting! :p
      • ducklamp 13y ago
        You'll probably go on the no fly list for that.
• whatevsbro 13y ago
  > We're really interested in getting feedback on how future campaigns can be better I'd recommend addressing the actual problem, which the all-encompassing surveillance is a symptom of. The actual problem is that there is a government in place. For more information, look up Stefan Molyneux, Larken Rose, Michael Huemer, Murray Rothbard, David Friedman, etc.
  • mildtrepidation 13y ago
    And the actual problem that cancer is a symptom of is that we have bodies. So we should really be working towards the Matrix, not doing dead-end research on curing or treating diseases.
    • whatevsbro 13y ago
      You're not following, but that's expected. It's not exactly difficult to see reasons for why governments should not exist. They're all around you, and there are countless of them. As a very simple example, why are laws like SOPA and CISPA passed in secret, unless there's a massive uprising against them? Obviously, they're passed in secret, or stealthily, or all of a sudden - they're just rammed through exactly because they know the people would be against these laws if they only fucking KNEW ABOUT THEM. Did you think defeating SOPA would be meaningful in the grand scheme of things? If they're passing one law that's harmful to the masses and against their will, why wouldn't they pass another? .. and another, and another? Well, if they're passing harmful and unnecessary laws all the fucking time, do you think they just might not be on your side? I mean, how difficult is it to figure out that "your" representatives don't actually represent you? They're constantly passing laws that are against your will, after all. Oh, and they're extorting you too! (It's called "taxation" to make it more palatable) Now then, since it's obvious that the government and its legislators are not on your side - contrary to what people commonly believe, strangely enough - doesn't it make you wonder whether having a government is a good idea in the first place?
      • j2kun 13y ago
        Yeah, having roads and running water are just awful. Schools, sanitation, energy, parks, rights for minorities and laborers. I just HATE that stuff.
• LukeShu 13y ago
  I think this is really great. Since you are asking for feedback, I heard this on IRC when I mentioned adding thedaywefightback.js to a site I manage. <Erkan_Yilmaz> lukeshu did you tell 'em already: #findTheError "The Day We Fight Back" against mass surveillance has on its website #twitter and #facebook offered (only) thedaywefightback.org That said, I'm not personally sure what's popular these days in terms of decentralized social networking.
• NicoJuicy 13y ago
  I'm actually curious how long it takes before Google adds it to their frontpage :)
  • peterclary 13y ago
    They seem to be celebrating "Safer Internet Day"
    • rasengan0 13y ago
      no doodle, when I Feel Lucky! https://www.google.com/trends/hottrends https://www.google.com/trends/hottrends
      • rasengan0 13y ago
        Google's in, along with a few others, but no App for that... http://www.reformgovernmentsurveillance.com/ http://www.reformgovernmentsurveillance.com/
• iandanforth 13y ago
  First off I love the "we'll call you and do all the work" implementation. Really lowers the barriers to entry. Second there are two tricky bits of the workflow that didn't quite work for me. 1. Feinstein doesn't have a mailbox, and if you wait on hold for more than 2 minutes the line hangs up. There was no mechanism to have tdwfb "try again later." So now the burden is on me again. (tiny violin) 2. I was connected to two congresspeeps. Only one is valid, but zip is ambiguous. I suggest that if someone spends time talking to the first rep, then the second shouldn't even be mentioned.
  • beaugunderson 13y ago
    Re: 1., we've just raised the time limit for calls to 20 minutes. Thanks for using the tool!
    • iandanforth 13y ago
      I'm sorry 1 was ambiguous. Feinstein's office hangs up and asks you to call back. The higher limit on your side is good though!
• elif 13y ago
  I'll preface by saying that the USA freedom act will pass because congress does not like finding out when an agency is going behind their backs, and also voting against it is electoral suicide in close districts. So, in my opinion a calling campaign is a gestural action. That said, fighting an information war against intelligence apparatus is a losing battle. This will only push the program deeper into the classified bowels of the massive US intelligence machine. They are currently operating through classified intelligence and loopholes, and once the FISA court loophole is closed they will find or produce another.
• chaostheory 13y ago
  Push even harder during elections.
  • dllthomas 13y ago
    What does that buy us, when politicians ignore campaign promises and so much of this is secret enough that it takes more than 4 years to come out?
    • josefresco 13y ago
      politicians ignore campaign promises You should back or elect different candidates. Don't simply choose the candidate others have chosen for you, get involved earlier in the process to make sure the person you're voting for has a greater chance of voting for the issues you care deeply for.
      • ItendToDisagree 13y ago
        That worked really poorly with the last "Hope & Change" candidate. If you suggest voting for an independent... That is sort of a pipedream in the current US election climate. Noble thought and effort to push for such a candidate, but they have little to no chance of actually being electable. And even if they do get elected... Whats to stop them from being totally corrupted, or just overtly ignored by the rest of the government? You think Obama had a hard time pushing through legislation? Just wait till some independent has to fight both Dems & Repubs on every issue because he/she isn't part of either party (and basically a slap in the face to their power structure.) Edit: The biggest issue (in my opinion) at this point is the two party system that is entrenched beyond belief.
        • rschmitty 13y ago
          > Edit: The biggest issue (in my opinion) at this point is the two party system that is entrenched beyond belief. Entrenched to hopelessness. Money buys politicians so much power and there is no amount of regulation (which would have to be passed by those in power and getting the money, HA!) that could curtail it. Eventually you are going to step on someone's first amendment right to "say" (buy ads upon ads upon ads) what they want for/against another candidate. I think the only way I can hope for actual change is for more people to get involved and not be so easily swayed by various types of media. But the majority is lazy..
• higherpurpose 13y ago
  Next time you do this, you should create a widget for calling Congressmen directly, the way Tumblr did it with SOPA last year I think. Calls are much more effective than signatures or emails and I barely even see a 2-step call to action for it. It should be the big immediate and obvious call to action right on the front.
  • gesman 13y ago
    So a congressman is going to pickup all these calls with a pen and pencil ready?
    • ForHackernews 13y ago
      Congressional staffers answer the phones and keep a tally of issues that have generated phone calls from constituents.
• higherpurpose 13y ago
  Oh, and this shouldn't be only a single day thing. I mean I see no reason why this couldn't have gone for a whole month, or even in perpetuity, and ask websites to keep it until we see real change from Congress.
• hubtree 13y ago
  Great site and resource, thanks! When I shared the link with a friend he mentioned he was uncomfortable giving his number and email address. Maybe consider having a link close to those fields to help the visitor find the number or email address of their Representative. That way if someone doesn't want to give out that information there is a quick alternative available.
  • hamburglar 13y ago
    Yes, this is always what I look for when I see one of these sites. As well-intentioned as you may be, I have no way of verifying that you're not putting me on a bother/solicit list, so the thing that is most likely to get me to participate is if you take all the "we do it for you" machinery and have an option where I can walk through the flowchart myself. Provide me a way of doing the mapping from my home address to the relevant phone numbers myself, then coach me on exactly what to say when I call.
    • hubtree 13y ago
      Exactly. It's asking to help get back privacy by giving private information. I understand why it's done, and it's quite useful to a lot of people. Still, having another option would be nice.