9 ms·

"By late Tuesday, some 70,000 calls had been placed to legislators and roughly 150,000 people had sent their representatives an email." What was to be expected

by spenvo 13y ago

"By late Tuesday, some 70,000 calls had been placed to legislators and roughly 150,000 people had sent their representatives an email." What was to be expected? The offices of my Senators and Representatives were swamped all day with phone calls. The author keeps paying lip-service to the comparison of this effort to SOPA/PIPA --- which was entirely different. Those bills were a direct challenge to the internet as we knew it, and everyone (including the big players) moved in to participate. That protest was about two game-changing bills with votes on the floor (all other paths for success had failed - if you're Google,Wikipedia, etc); this protest was about the status quo. Our elected officials heard us today - from seemingly nowhere, that the status quo isn't acceptable. The verbiage directly called the kettle black on the supposed "FISA Reform Bill," reminding politicians that the powder is dry if head too far off course. And that (IMHO) makes a big statement. I felt the post was unjustifiably negative[/defeatist] with a link bait title and lame observations. It would be great to see Google, Facebook, Wikipedia, etc. play a larger role and "see the bigger picture"-- especially given that companies like Microsoft have officially recognized dragnet surveillance as an "advanced persistent threat." [0] Again, it would be great, but it can't be necessary. We want their help, but we cannot need it. PS - It's defeatist to say the following: "internet protests will never change anything in Washington." "The Powerbroker," a Pulitzer-Prize winning biography praised by Aaron Swartz [1], conveys the following two lessons with regards to affecting change in government: 1.) the only thing which matters (from the perspective of a common man) is raising the political stakes in every manner possible, forcing the issue into the court of public opinion where politicians must pick sides in a very public affair. 2.) The other things which matter are in conversations which you are not a part of. . . ... dig in. This is a minor skirmish in a long war (of attrition) against the Est.. [0] - http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/5/5177554/microsoft-plans-server-encryption-against-nsa-snooping http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/5/5177554/microsoft-plans-se... [1] - https://zolabooks.com/list/aaron-swartz-reading-list/1 https://zolabooks.com/list/aaron-swartz-reading-list/1

ItendToDisagree 13y ago
The fact that Google/Yahoo/Facebook/Wiki didn't promote or get involved with this REALLY hurt the cause... To many (read: The Majority) of people the above companies are the internet. In the same way the people who think this way used to think AOL was The Internet (Capitals important). It really is sad that this seems to be true and that a couple companies have so much influence on what the internet is and does. But it really did make it easy to downplay the whole thing by saying "If it was so important why didn't Google get involved?"
- chriswarbo 13y ago
  If you're going to complain about the meaning of words, you should at least try to use them properly yourself. Lowercase "internet" refers to any network of networks, for example a router which lets machines connected via Ethernet talk to machines connected via WiFi. Capitalised "Internet" is a proper noun referring to a particular network of networks which began life as the ARPANET. "Wiki" refers to user-generated Web sites in the style of WikiWikiWeb; since you put it in a list of Web sites/companies, I'll presume you meant "Wikipedia", which is a particular Wiki. So whilst AOL, Google, Yahoo, Facebook and Wikipedia aren't "The Internet", at least your hypothetical "Majority" have enough respect for the Internet to refer to it by name.
  - ne0codex 13y ago
    That is a really pedantic response that completely misses the point. You can't deny that there wasn't any real, marketed involvement used by the top Internet companies to promote the cause. Yes, the execution of this topic's awareness was very lackluster, so what exactly is your point?
  - ItendToDisagree 13y ago
    Apologies for using a shorthand (Wiki) for something that was clearly referencing the parent post (Google, Facebook, Wikipedia, etc.)... Sorry to ruffle your e-feathers over such a minor thing. For the record I wasn't 'complaining about words' I was pointing out that the lack of involvement by major players on the internet was a huge detriment to this cause because it failed to reach the 'less advanced' (and arguable majority of) users of the internet.
  - mads 13y ago
    Classic HN answer
    - GrinningFool 13y ago
      I have to disagree. One of the things I like about HN is that grammar/usage nazi responses seeem to occur at a lower rate than just about anywhere else. Even better - the speed of downmodding is directly proportionate to the quantity of pedanticism present.
GrinningFool 13y ago
That's OK - because now it's covered in the NYT blogs. People who were previously unaware now have a little more info. A minor subset of them have looked a little further into the issue. Little steps.
pessimizer 13y ago
>PS - It's defeatist to say the following: "internet protests will never change anything in Washington." You shouldn't characterize the dismissal of a single technique as ineffective to achieving a stated goal as some sort of a spiritual or moral failing (or whatever "defeatist" is supposed to mean other than 'a prediction of defeat.') Would you say that the statement "your private prayers will never change anything about segregated schools" is defeatist? Personally, I think that protests succeed through creating an intimidating public physical presence that actively prevents the behavior being protested against, or through the violent reaction of the powers being protested against to the protest causing outrage amongst passive supporters of those powers. I don't see any way that banner ads fit into that. That being said, it was a great effort to spread good and current information to people, and to remind Congress that we are a special interest group that needs to be catered to. >Our elected officials heard us today - from seemingly nowhere, that the status quo isn't acceptable. They hear this from abortion, gun rights, and immigration protesters on both sides every day, except for those causes, people are willing to fight to the death. For this cause, there's a webapp to help people send email. For a politician, choosing either position on any of the former issues will completely obliterate any influence that the latter will have on the vote. We're really going to have to get together in real life, and make plans to make life unpleasant for specific people who oppose our goals and convince other people to do the same. The problem with that is that when you start doing that, you're going to go on a list, there are going to be informants that you think are your friends, and all of your communications and movements are going to be scoured for opportunities for parallel construction in order to imprison you or to blackmail you into becoming an informant. You may lose your job, you may go to prison. There are a number of people who have committed to this lifestyle over the NSA issue. The strength of any effective movement is going to be measured by the number of those people. As a lot of people have said, I agree that the most important thing that we can do is create channels through which they (and hopefully we) can communicate without being monitored. I think that a very close second is to create channels for the average person to be able to donate funds to the imprisoned without ending up on a list.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
crassus 13y ago
This was a good start because it mobilized some passionate people. The next step is building effective organizations for these people to get behind, organizations that promote a minimalist tech/privacy platform - leave off controversial issues like immigration, as much as it tempts you. The purpose of these organizations should be that anybody who supports it gets reelected, and anybody that doesn't loses their job. This is the same principle that powerful unions and interest groups work on. All other bullshit issues of the day have to become secondary importance, or this organization will never gain clout. Until Feinstein is enjoying 7-day vacations every week, the job is not done. If you're thinking "OMG, that might mean a moderate California Republican took her seat! Think of the childrenz!" then you're not up for the task.
0ca0 13y ago
>PS - It's defeatist to say the following: "internet protests will never change anything in Washington." Don't be an idiot. It's defeatist to say that we can never change anything to rid ourselves of oppression. It's perfectly valid to say that online petitions and online protests are relatively useless because usually it follows from that that there are more effective alternatives.
whatevsbro 13y ago
> Our elected officials heard us today - from seemingly nowhere, that the status quo isn't acceptable Do you really think they didn't already know that? Do you think they give a fuck? Do you think they might just be doing whatever the hell they damn well please, despite all of it being against the people's will? This isn't about calling "your" (read: "Wall Street's" etc) representatives. It's not about pleading for less intrusive and oppressive "governance". You know, letters or phone calls don't actually compel politicians to do anything. This is about a small group of people being in power, and everyone else subject to it. Do you think you need a bunch of rulers? Can't you make your own decisions? -Should someone be "legislating" your life? Would you like to have a personal law just for you that mandated eating your veggies and exercising regularly? Would you want that law enforced through violence if necessary? -No? What if someone decided to force you to exercise anyway? Would that be alright? It's for your own good, after all! -No? But.. why? Why would that not be alright, if the government forcing you to pay taxes or buy insurance is alright?
sinak 13y ago
I think David Segal's comment, which were added later to the article, sum things up pretty perfectly: “To mark all organizing a success or failure by measuring it against the single biggest online activist moment ever is ridiculous.” But this was also just a case of really lazy journalism. Nicole Perlroth failed to contact any of the organizations or companies involved before publishing her article, and it contained a number of factual inaccuracies, only some of which have now been corrected: - "Sites like Tumblr, Mozilla and DuckDuckGo, which were listed as organizers, did nothing to their homepages." None of them were "listed as organizers." Their logos appeared on their site, but supporting/participating != organizing. This would have been easily corrected if she'd asked. DuckDuckGo changed their homepage logo yesterday, and Mozilla added a link and logo on the browser start page, which is visible every time someone opens a new window. - "[List of large tech co's] only participated Tuesday insofar as having a joint website flash the protest banner." Facebook, Google and Twitter also released statements in support, and tweeted/shared on social media. - "Most of those [calls and emails] were directed to Senator Dianne Feinstein." I have no idea where she got this from. Feinstein did receive 2420 calls, but saying she received "most" of them is just nonsense. - "But on privacy forums and Reddit, significant discussions failed to materialize." Over 4,000 comments were posted to the reddit blog post that announced their participation and contained the banner. At least another 3,000 comments were made on other threads. You can also see a diff of changes made to the post later in the day here: https://github.com/sinak/sinak.github.com/commit/d8050c456337beb73301844904acd95225eec031 https://github.com/sinak/sinak.github.com/commit/d8050c45633...
- sinak 13y ago
  We drove 80k calls and 500k+ emails to Congress without a specific vote pending. Even without any of the larger tech companies participating we generated about as fifth as many calls as SOPA (400k). We also lacked a call to action as defeating a pending bill that would jeopardize internet freedom. Why didn't larger tech companies didn't take part? I think that's an interesting question worth a journalist investigating. As with SOPA, companies like Google left their decision until the last minute. But this time around they decided to support the protest, but not take part by adding content to their home pages. I'm not sure any one thing explains it. Larger tech has added a significant lobbying apparatus since 2011 and perhaps that's part of it. They're playing the inside political game much more so than they did a couple of years ago. If it turns out to be more effective that online activism, I'm not sure we can particularly criticize them for it. They've also banded together on this issue under the "reformgovernmentsurveillance.com" banner. That makes participation a more complicated group decision-making process. While we branded yesterday as "the day" (which I know some of you take issue with), this is by no means the end. It's one in a series of actions. The actual votes on bills like the USA Freedom Act and FISA Improvements Act are yet to come. We made a dent, but this is a process.
aaronem 13y ago
> The verbiage directly called the kettle black on the supposed "FISA Reform Bill," reminding politicians that the powder is dry if head too far off course. And that (IMHO) makes a big statement. An incomprehensible statement, more like. Would you mind replacing the cliché slaw with something more closely resembling what you are actually trying to say?

by spenvo 13y ago

ItendToDisagree 13y ago

The fact that Google/Yahoo/Facebook/Wiki didn't promote or get involved with this REALLY hurt the cause... To many (read: The Majority) of people the above companies are the internet. In the same way the people who think this way used to think AOL was The Internet (Capitals important). It really is sad that this seems to be true and that a couple companies have so much influence on what the internet is and does. But it really did make it easy to downplay the whole thing by saying "If it was so important why didn't Google get involved?"

chriswarbo 13y ago
If you're going to complain about the meaning of words, you should at least try to use them properly yourself. Lowercase "internet" refers to any network of networks, for example a router which lets machines connected via Ethernet talk to machines connected via WiFi. Capitalised "Internet" is a proper noun referring to a particular network of networks which began life as the ARPANET. "Wiki" refers to user-generated Web sites in the style of WikiWikiWeb; since you put it in a list of Web sites/companies, I'll presume you meant "Wikipedia", which is a particular Wiki. So whilst AOL, Google, Yahoo, Facebook and Wikipedia aren't "The Internet", at least your hypothetical "Majority" have enough respect for the Internet to refer to it by name.
- ne0codex 13y ago
  That is a really pedantic response that completely misses the point. You can't deny that there wasn't any real, marketed involvement used by the top Internet companies to promote the cause. Yes, the execution of this topic's awareness was very lackluster, so what exactly is your point?
- ItendToDisagree 13y ago
  Apologies for using a shorthand (Wiki) for something that was clearly referencing the parent post (Google, Facebook, Wikipedia, etc.)... Sorry to ruffle your e-feathers over such a minor thing. For the record I wasn't 'complaining about words' I was pointing out that the lack of involvement by major players on the internet was a huge detriment to this cause because it failed to reach the 'less advanced' (and arguable majority of) users of the internet.
- mads 13y ago
  Classic HN answer
  - GrinningFool 13y ago
    I have to disagree. One of the things I like about HN is that grammar/usage nazi responses seeem to occur at a lower rate than just about anywhere else. Even better - the speed of downmodding is directly proportionate to the quantity of pedanticism present.

GrinningFool 13y ago

That's OK - because now it's covered in the NYT blogs. People who were previously unaware now have a little more info. A minor subset of them have looked a little further into the issue. Little steps.

pessimizer 13y ago

>PS - It's defeatist to say the following: "internet protests will never change anything in Washington." You shouldn't characterize the dismissal of a single technique as ineffective to achieving a stated goal as some sort of a spiritual or moral failing (or whatever "defeatist" is supposed to mean other than 'a prediction of defeat.') Would you say that the statement "your private prayers will never change anything about segregated schools" is defeatist? Personally, I think that protests succeed through creating an intimidating public physical presence that actively prevents the behavior being protested against, or through the violent reaction of the powers being protested against to the protest causing outrage amongst passive supporters of those powers. I don't see any way that banner ads fit into that. That being said, it was a great effort to spread good and current information to people, and to remind Congress that we are a special interest group that needs to be catered to. >Our elected officials heard us today - from seemingly nowhere, that the status quo isn't acceptable. They hear this from abortion, gun rights, and immigration protesters on both sides every day, except for those causes, people are willing to fight to the death. For this cause, there's a webapp to help people send email. For a politician, choosing either position on any of the former issues will completely obliterate any influence that the latter will have on the vote. We're really going to have to get together in real life, and make plans to make life unpleasant for specific people who oppose our goals and convince other people to do the same. The problem with that is that when you start doing that, you're going to go on a list, there are going to be informants that you think are your friends, and all of your communications and movements are going to be scoured for opportunities for parallel construction in order to imprison you or to blackmail you into becoming an informant. You may lose your job, you may go to prison. There are a number of people who have committed to this lifestyle over the NSA issue. The strength of any effective movement is going to be measured by the number of those people. As a lot of people have said, I agree that the most important thing that we can do is create channels through which they (and hopefully we) can communicate without being monitored. I think that a very close second is to create channels for the average person to be able to donate funds to the imprisoned without ending up on a list.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

crassus 13y ago

This was a good start because it mobilized some passionate people. The next step is building effective organizations for these people to get behind, organizations that promote a minimalist tech/privacy platform - leave off controversial issues like immigration, as much as it tempts you. The purpose of these organizations should be that anybody who supports it gets reelected, and anybody that doesn't loses their job. This is the same principle that powerful unions and interest groups work on. All other bullshit issues of the day have to become secondary importance, or this organization will never gain clout. Until Feinstein is enjoying 7-day vacations every week, the job is not done. If you're thinking "OMG, that might mean a moderate California Republican took her seat! Think of the childrenz!" then you're not up for the task.

0ca0 13y ago

>PS - It's defeatist to say the following: "internet protests will never change anything in Washington." Don't be an idiot. It's defeatist to say that we can never change anything to rid ourselves of oppression. It's perfectly valid to say that online petitions and online protests are relatively useless because usually it follows from that that there are more effective alternatives.

whatevsbro 13y ago

> Our elected officials heard us today - from seemingly nowhere, that the status quo isn't acceptable Do you really think they didn't already know that? Do you think they give a fuck? Do you think they might just be doing whatever the hell they damn well please, despite all of it being against the people's will? This isn't about calling "your" (read: "Wall Street's" etc) representatives. It's not about pleading for less intrusive and oppressive "governance". You know, letters or phone calls don't actually compel politicians to do anything. This is about a small group of people being in power, and everyone else subject to it. Do you think you need a bunch of rulers? Can't you make your own decisions? -Should someone be "legislating" your life? Would you like to have a personal law just for you that mandated eating your veggies and exercising regularly? Would you want that law enforced through violence if necessary? -No? What if someone decided to force you to exercise anyway? Would that be alright? It's for your own good, after all! -No? But.. why? Why would that not be alright, if the government forcing you to pay taxes or buy insurance is alright?

sinak 13y ago

I think David Segal's comment, which were added later to the article, sum things up pretty perfectly: “To mark all organizing a success or failure by measuring it against the single biggest online activist moment ever is ridiculous.” But this was also just a case of really lazy journalism. Nicole Perlroth failed to contact any of the organizations or companies involved before publishing her article, and it contained a number of factual inaccuracies, only some of which have now been corrected: - "Sites like Tumblr, Mozilla and DuckDuckGo, which were listed as organizers, did nothing to their homepages." None of them were "listed as organizers." Their logos appeared on their site, but supporting/participating != organizing. This would have been easily corrected if she'd asked. DuckDuckGo changed their homepage logo yesterday, and Mozilla added a link and logo on the browser start page, which is visible every time someone opens a new window. - "[List of large tech co's] only participated Tuesday insofar as having a joint website flash the protest banner." Facebook, Google and Twitter also released statements in support, and tweeted/shared on social media. - "Most of those [calls and emails] were directed to Senator Dianne Feinstein." I have no idea where she got this from. Feinstein did receive 2420 calls, but saying she received "most" of them is just nonsense. - "But on privacy forums and Reddit, significant discussions failed to materialize." Over 4,000 comments were posted to the reddit blog post that announced their participation and contained the banner. At least another 3,000 comments were made on other threads. You can also see a diff of changes made to the post later in the day here: https://github.com/sinak/sinak.github.com/commit/d8050c456337beb73301844904acd95225eec031 https://github.com/sinak/sinak.github.com/commit/d8050c45633...

sinak 13y ago
We drove 80k calls and 500k+ emails to Congress without a specific vote pending. Even without any of the larger tech companies participating we generated about as fifth as many calls as SOPA (400k). We also lacked a call to action as defeating a pending bill that would jeopardize internet freedom. Why didn't larger tech companies didn't take part? I think that's an interesting question worth a journalist investigating. As with SOPA, companies like Google left their decision until the last minute. But this time around they decided to support the protest, but not take part by adding content to their home pages. I'm not sure any one thing explains it. Larger tech has added a significant lobbying apparatus since 2011 and perhaps that's part of it. They're playing the inside political game much more so than they did a couple of years ago. If it turns out to be more effective that online activism, I'm not sure we can particularly criticize them for it. They've also banded together on this issue under the "reformgovernmentsurveillance.com" banner. That makes participation a more complicated group decision-making process. While we branded yesterday as "the day" (which I know some of you take issue with), this is by no means the end. It's one in a series of actions. The actual votes on bills like the USA Freedom Act and FISA Improvements Act are yet to come. We made a dent, but this is a process.

aaronem 13y ago

> The verbiage directly called the kettle black on the supposed "FISA Reform Bill," reminding politicians that the powder is dry if head too far off course. And that (IMHO) makes a big statement. An incomprehensible statement, more like. Would you mind replacing the cliché slaw with something more closely resembling what you are actually trying to say?