FYI as of 11:30am ET there are approximately 5,000 calls per hour going into Congress right now through this effort. Keep it up everyone!
Today is The Day We Fight Back
141–150 of 267 posts
Re: Today is The Day We Fight Back
#142Why do I have a feeling that this is like changing your Facebook picture because you think it might make a difference?
I get the same feeling. From the website: Governments worldwide need to know that mass surveillance, like that conducted by the NSA, is always a violation of our inalienable human rights. Sorry, but the governments of the world already know this. Obama, Merkel, Hollande, Cameron or Putin isn't going to stand up proclaim: "I'm sorry, we didn't know". It's not that we shouldn't do anything, nor do I have the answer as…
'Internet "Blackout" is already forgotten and just pissed people of, it didn't encouraged anyone to resolve or change anything.'
SOPA and PIPA were defeated after several legislators changed their stance, purportedly in response to phone calls surrounding the blackout.
Re: Today is The Day We Fight Back
#143Why don't we (as the hacker/programmer community) also "fight back" in the meaningful & legal way that is our core strength? Resolve to push for encryption if there is any PII data in an app that you work with especially if it is a e-mail/mobile/social app. at scale Refuse to work with/at NSA until their policies change Refuse to participate in any committee/standards body, conferences, with NSA employees (or their c…
>Refuse to work with/at NSA until their policies change When the NSA demands your data, you're not really entering a business partnership. >Refuse to participate in any committee/standards body, conferences, with NSA employees (or their cohort companies who have willingly forsaken the public's interests) That said, if you're part a committee or a standards body and you have opinions, the only way that you'll get your…
> When the NSA demands your data, you're not really entering a business partnership.
True, but I saw the original comment as relating more to recruiting. The NSA works just as hard as any tech company to compete for skilled employees.
If you're the kind of person they want to hire, you have lots of fantastic other choices. So choose something else. Unless you're planning to pull a Snowden (and have gonads of steel).
And if you do decide to help code the surveillance state, the rest of us may take that into consideration in future hiring, buying, and investing decisions.
Re: Today is The Day We Fight Back
#144Including a third party javascript to protest and spread awareness about mass surveillance... That seems a little ironic.
Re: Today is The Day We Fight Back
#145Posted this up on our Meetup Group & sent out an e-mail to ask members to participate. One person left the group due to this. Funny thing is, she works for Cloudera!
Re: Today is The Day We Fight Back
#146What disturbs me is not once was Obama's image shown in this video. More than anyone he is the person pressure should be put on to start change(no pun intended).
Before we knew the extent of surveillance we saw images like this of Bush: http://www.funny-games.biz/pictures/648-vampire-bush.html
I never had to go looking for the imagery above during Bush's tenure it was everywhere. Where is it now for the current administration?
Re: Today is The Day We Fight Back
#147I'm amazed that nobody's mentioned the biggest weapon we have against the political class:
Primary elections.
Not the final elections - by then the incumbents are in place and it's too late ... for national office, incumbents resign / die more often than they're beat by an opponent.
Primaries are where the action is, for two reasons:
* it's the one time an incumbent is most vulnerable
* very few people vote in primaries compared to election time, so each person's vote makes a bigger difference
Want change in D.C.? If you primary just 10% of the critters there, you'll get their full, undivided attention.
Yes, emails, letters, and phone calls have an effect. So does K Street. Politicians care about their re-election and money / resources to make it happen, so in the game of influence, I (a normal taxpayer with neither the desire nor the ability to bribe them) will always have the disadvantage. That's why I'd rather fight outside their game - in the primary race.
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More info:
Yes, these links are from a tea partier perspective, but guess what? The tools they describe work for everybody just the same.
http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2011/09/13/storming-the-...
http://www.campaign4primaryaccountability.org/ One of the organizations in this space; there are others out there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSib8MfaQLQ Leo Linbeck describes the general strategy and how it can work.
Re: Today is The Day We Fight Back
#148All 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 companies listed on the site. We're really interested in getting feedback on how future campaigns can be better, and happy to discuss some of the decisions we made. The non-profits involved did all the legal and organization lifting, and this is a great opportunity to…
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.
Re: Today is The Day We Fight Back
#149I honestly think this is naive at best, and at worst useful idiocy on behalf of the companies dependent on the illusion the aim is even achievable. Mass surveillance, if technically possible, is going to happen. Therefore make services where it isn't possible. If that screws with your business model you're part of the problem.
I do not put much faith in it simply because I bet the majority of people who are behind this voted for the guy in charge and will vote for the next person that same party put up all because they cannot think rationally. As in, you vote for a candidate who is protected by identity politics you will never have a voice. You vote for a politician who adheres to the D or R and your just doing nothing.
I wish I could upvote this 10x.
Re: Today is The Day We Fight Back
#150All 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 companies listed on the site. We're really interested in getting feedback on how future campaigns can be better, and happy to discuss some of the decisions we made. The non-profits involved did all the legal and organization lifting, and this is a great opportunity to…
Push even harder during elections.