Relevant news: NSA and GCHQ activities appear illegal, says EU parliamentary inquiry
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/09/nsa-gchq-illega...
An Open Letter to HN from EFF, Demand Progress, and Cory Doctorow
11–20 of 106 posts
Re: An Open Letter to HN from EFF, Demand Progress, and Cory Doctorow
#12As foreigners, should we care? Next time someone organizes something similar, can they think of a worlwide action? Can they make something which doesn't sound like "Worldwide anti-american day" but rather "Worldwide day of support to the debate that US citizen started"? US citizens are only 313 millions and the US law protects you against surveillance. We, the rest of the world, are all subject to this surveillance i…
The letter focuses on trying to enact change in the US government with regard to internet surveillance, for everyone. It gives no indication that the efforts are intended only to improve the situation for American citizens.
> ... and the US law protects you against surveillance.
The recent revelations would suggest otherwise.
Re: An Open Letter to HN from EFF, Demand Progress, and Cory Doctorow
#13Call me skeptical, but this is yet another sign of the degeneration of Western civilization and the indoctrination of being apathetic. If you really think slamming a website online and calling people to post memes on Facebook will change anything but some link scoops on CNN, you are delusional. About 5 months ago I posted a related comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6147370) and it's as true as any other day.
"B-but this time it will be different! We have logos of relatively big companies on our website!" - hang in tight, brother, because "The Day We Fight Back" isn't anywhere close.
Re: An Open Letter to HN from EFF, Demand Progress, and Cory Doctorow
#14This forum has long been a repository of outrage, confusion, and dissapointment. It is high time that the anger expressed transform into something coherent and mobilized, and action be taken against corporate government who are actively trying to take control of our global mind (the internet) and quantify our private lives for who-knows-what (NSA revelations). Aaron Schwartz remains an avatar for this movement, and taught many of us that as hackers, we have a responsibility to society when freedom of information is tampered with, just as a doctor is responsible at the scene of a motor accident.
Re: An Open Letter to HN from EFF, Demand Progress, and Cory Doctorow
#15I did not know Aaron, but in my mind, I knew Aaron not as an activist, although he was. I knew Aaron as an architect, an engineer, a programmer, a visionary. I'm sure he talked, I'm sure he protested and I'm sure he did many other things, but to me what Aaron did was build the future. He literally built a small part of the future, using computers and algorithms. You can take a thousand activists--tens of thousands--but at the end of the month, if none of them build anything, there will be nothing left after they leave. Not even words.
What would Aaron do? Would Aaron have just passively asked for people to come forward? Would he have asked everyone to post some icon everywhere? Some forgettable meme?
Or would he have created something? Something that maybe wouldn't be obvious to the likes of us, to the likes of the EFF and The New Yorker? Something explosive (figuratively, Ms. Ortiz, figuratively)? Something evolutionary? Would he have banged out some code that would make even die hard Wikipedians feel unwise?
I don't know. I really don't. I don't even know what A/B testing means. But if no one else does, I have a feeling this is going to suck.
Edit: I didn't even know downvoting was possible on HN, but hey, if haters aren't hating then you're doing it wrong
Re: An Open Letter to HN from EFF, Demand Progress, and Cory Doctorow
#16As someone who has done a fair amount of activism and advocacy work, I'll say this: Over the last 6 months, I've seen a number of people make comments on relevant HN posts to the effect of "This sucks, but how do we actually change anything" This is what you've been waiting for - here's a chance to actually do something about it. Don't be discouraged when things seem to be standing still. Because of the way our minds…
I feel like the more we talk about it, the more everyone becomes desensitized to the U.S. surveillance problem. Then we get the public at large just rolling their eyes and saying "Oh, another paranoid lunatic wants to take over the government".
I want to do more than just like stuff on facebook... hopefully this will present something more tangible. I signed up for the "Add a banner to your site" list. I can tell ~15k visitors about this over the next month at least.
Re: An Open Letter to HN from EFF, Demand Progress, and Cory Doctorow
#17As foreigners, should we care? Next time someone organizes something similar, can they think of a worlwide action? Can they make something which doesn't sound like "Worldwide anti-american day" but rather "Worldwide day of support to the debate that US citizen started"? US citizens are only 313 millions and the US law protects you against surveillance. We, the rest of the world, are all subject to this surveillance i…
The letter focuses on trying to enact change in the US government with regard to internet surveillance, for everyone. It gives no indication that the efforts are intended only to improve the situation for American citizens. > ... and the US law protects you against surveillance. The recent revelations would suggest otherwise.
Then it ignores the reality of the law which is very specific regarding the difference between American citizens and the rest of the world. Not that the NSA cares either way.
Re: An Open Letter to HN from EFF, Demand Progress, and Cory Doctorow
#18I hope you guys won't stop at pushing just for the USA Freedom Act, which sounds pretty decent, but not like it's going far enough. To me Rush Holt's Surveillance State Repeal Act sounded close to ideal, but he's going to need some co-sponsors for it.
Ron Wyden, Mark Udall and Rand Paul's bill also I think sounded better than the USA Freedom Act. I always forget its name because they chose a pretty bad and long one ("intelligence oversight something"). So I hope you keep working on passing those (or others like it), too, and don't stop at the USA Freedom Act (or try getting some amendments to that pushed, too).
Re: An Open Letter to HN from EFF, Demand Progress, and Cory Doctorow
#19Call me skeptical, but this is yet another sign of the degeneration of Western civilization and the indoctrination of being apathetic. If you really think slamming a website online and calling people to post memes on Facebook will change anything but some link scoops on CNN, you are delusional. About 5 months ago I posted a related comment ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6147370 ) and it's as true as any other…
It appears to be nothing but slactivism.
At least everyone involved will fee like they did something.
Re: An Open Letter to HN from EFF, Demand Progress, and Cory Doctorow
#20Call me skeptical, but this is yet another sign of the degeneration of Western civilization and the indoctrination of being apathetic. If you really think slamming a website online and calling people to post memes on Facebook will change anything but some link scoops on CNN, you are delusional. About 5 months ago I posted a related comment ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6147370 ) and it's as true as any other…
It appears to be nothing but slactivism. At least everyone involved will fee like they did something.
Whereas you get the smug satisfaction of feeling superior to people who are actually doing anything at all.