So the suggestion here is to "fight back" by asking politely the people who are abusing you to please stop.
Thats what it seems like to me too. Can someone explain how this is not just another slacktivism thing? Hashtags and banners on a website...
Hashtags and banners are only helpful for raising awareness. Phone calls to congresspeople actually can have an impact. Congresspeople keep track of issues that generate a lot of phone calls, and it influences how they vote and what they spend their time on.
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.
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 becaus…
It's not difficult to see that government should not exist ... Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound? No one should take you seriously; I don't see what espousing that ideology is going to get you.
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.
So a congressman is going to pickup all these calls with a pen and pencil ready?
Congressional staffers answer the phones and keep a tally of issues that have generated phone calls from constituents.
I'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 primar…
Primaries are mostly about gay marriage, abortion, and conspiracy theories.
Nothing on this page effectively answers the single most common response to mass surveillance: "Why should I care if they read my emails? I'm not important and I don't do anything wrong. If it helps them catch terrorists, who cares?" Until this question is answered clearly and effectively, nobody except all those splinter groups represented by so many logos will care about this.
I don't think this is the single most important question. Most people would not stand for their phone calls being listened to, email is not much different.
No problems, I can see one or two bits that I think could do with clarifying (not least to get rid of emacs :P ). I'll have a go at it this evening and take notes.
The particular editor isn't all that important. You could just use nano or vi. I don't think any of the instructions contain anything really Emacs specific. I happen to use Emacs and the source for the site is an org-mode document, which makes editing it very easy. Exporting it as HTML is a few key presses.
Only messing. I just couldn't resist bringing up the great editor debate :)
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 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…
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.
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.
(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…
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/ ), that were worked out last year (pre-Snowden, ac…
It's a great action - and technically speaking takes us to a new level I think - I look forward to adapting the code for other campaigns I'm involved with. I appreciate the background and your work involved in bringing groups together internationally.
But my question is, with the publication/confirmation yesterday of the basis of the US drone assassination program in NSA cellphone spying (see https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/02/10/the-ns...), will you be incorporating a demand to reign in the NSA because their surveillance is killing innocent people? I think it is a real opportunity to reach out to many other groups and individuals who are opposed to and organizing against the drones both in the US and abroad.
Why 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…
mass surveillance... is always a violation of our inalienable human rights.
Whenever I see something like this, I think of Inigo Montoya:
Protestor: They're taking away our inalienable rights!
Inigo: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Nothing on this page effectively answers the single most common response to mass surveillance: "Why should I care if they read my emails? I'm not important and I don't do anything wrong. If it helps them catch terrorists, who cares?" Until this question is answered clearly and effectively, nobody except all those splinter groups represented by so many logos will care about this.
Did you watch the video? Didn't the parts about protecting what our founding fathers fought for and preventing abuses of power by elected official like Richard Nixon make sense to you?
To me your quote sounds like a smoker who has been shown evidence of a history of smoking causing cancer but prefers to ignore it and make excuses because its easier then accepting they need to make a change.