An Open Letter to HN from EFF, Demand Progress, and Cory Doctorow

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jan 10, 2014, 6:25 PM UTC

craigching wrote: post #38

john_b wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, U.S. Congressmen don't care what foreigners think about U.S. surveillance policy. Foreigners aren't going to vote them out of office. I think the EFF, etc. are wise to focus their limited resources in ways that maximize their chances of being heard. The Snowden revelations make clear that U.S. citizens are not protected against surveillance by their own government. Just because foreigners are less protected…

> Frankly, U.S. Congressmen don't care what foreigners think about U.S. surveillance policy. Congress might care when US corporations' bottom lines are affected by the surveillance. In fact, it's starting to be reported that US corporations are being affected already. EDIT: To be clear, when US corporations bottom lines in sales to entities in foreign countries. IBM and Cisco have already attributed slumps in sales t…

Post by aragot » Fri, Jan 10, 2014, 6:42 PM UTC

sinak wrote: post #29

aragot wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It gives no indication that the efforts are intended only to improve the situation for American citizens. It gives no indication for foreigners either. Actually the letter is very fuzzy about the demands to the government(s). It should list action points and criteriae so governments/crowds know when the movement will be dissolved and don't get afraid of the limits. Moreover the way we leverage politics in France is…

At multiple points during the planning calls for this campaign, we significantly changed our plans, the language, and our tact to make sure that our call was viewed as being considerate of international concerns. This letter originally had language to that effect, calling out GCHQ as a major part of the problem, and that surveillance does not only effect US citizens. For evidence of this, take a look at the "And Ever…

Post by bananacurve » Fri, Jan 10, 2014, 6:47 PM UTC

autotravis wrote: post #16

chimeracoder wrote: post #3

As 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 ~15…

Post by pyre » Fri, Jan 10, 2014, 6:53 PM UTC

drone wrote: post #27

aragot wrote: post #9

As 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…

You should care, because without any protection for our own citizens, there is no possibility of protection for non-citizens. That being said, if you best wanted to ensure that no US agency ever spies on you, a good start would be for your government to prove it never spies on US citizens. That runs both ways: you want to trust us, we want to trust you. So, it takes both: a strong localized protection, and a verifiab…

Post by drone » Fri, Jan 10, 2014, 6:56 PM UTC

pyre wrote: post #47

drone wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should care, because without any protection for our own citizens, there is no possibility of protection for non-citizens. That being said, if you best wanted to ensure that no US agency ever spies on you, a good start would be for your government to prove it never spies on US citizens. That runs both ways: you want to trust us, we want to trust you. So, it takes both: a strong localized protection, and a verifiab…

What about the Five Eyes countries? This is less of an adversarial "you are spying on us, so we should be able to spy on you," and more of a "the NSA has invited our country to spy on US citizens so that they can get data from us." At the very least, some of that responsibility comes from the NSA.