
The Day We Fight Back - sinak
https://thedaywefightback.org
======
niuzeta
No, it's not _fighting_ back. Making clever memes online to earn a chuckle or
two might help _spreading awareness_ , but in reality changing an online
avatar and posting memes online won't affect much in real life.

What I find strange is that(Please correct me on this one) there just doesn't
seem to be a political group of technologist who lobby(the original meaning)
against politicians. In truth, technology-related policies should be consulted
and heard by people who use and develop the said technologies.

What's worse about this _retaliation_ is that anyone participating it would
have an illusion of having done _something_ without actually having done
anything(i.e., impact). At the end of the day, you might walk home feeling
good about yourself for _having fought for a cause_ , but some harsh reality
check needs to be done.

Addendum:

As per the second paragraph, refer to one of the replies on this
comment([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7038058](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7038058)):

> An abbreviated list of groups who do that: EFF, Public Knowledge, Demand
> Progress, Engine Advocacy, CDT, OTI, Free Press. Many of these have multiple
> registered lobbyists walking the halls of Congress and taking meetings.

I stand corrected.

~~~
l33tbro
No. Why is achievement in our culture positioned to always be this 3-act epic
like we have to slay the bad guy? try rethinking your approach here and accept
that it is actually totally fine to walk home at the end of the day and
celebrate a small victory.

There are indeed technology consultants that inform these govt policy: they're
called lobbyists and their influence is often proportional to how much their
self-interest will prosper. this is why the system doesn't work and Hacker's
like Aaron need to step in. None of us believe we'll walk away from this
having fixed anything, it is an ongoing process to keep the system in check.
The point, however, is to simply concentrate our anger and focus over a month
into, as a hacker, doing SOMETHING proactive against this.

~~~
niuzeta
> it is actually totally fine to walk home at the end of the day and celebrate
> a small victory.

It _is_ fine to walk home and celebrate a small _victory_.

It may not be fine to walk home and celebrate a victory, however small, when
that victory is nothing but an illusion. Exactly what kind of victory will
this _movement_ achieve? From what I can tell it's another let's-feel-good-
about-ourselves-by-shouting-at-same-time.

It makes you feel great, sure, but in the end what have you achieved? Two
child comments from my comment have corrected me of groups who _are_ fighting
back. Perhaps a donation? Spreading awareness _of the groups_?

A political motion needs to happen continuously. A day's worth party may be
fun, but in the end it's a party. People walk home and do not follow.

------
herbig
"If Aaron were alive, he'd be on the front lines, fighting against a world in
which governments observe, collect, and analyze our every digital action."

While government surveillance and open access are both information issues, we
definitely should not be construing what he would or wouldn't believe about
revelations that were made after his death.

If we're taking a literal interpretation of his Guerilla Open Access
Manifesto, he may well be on the front lines fighting for a world with zero
privacy from anyone.

~~~
coldpie
I think the emphasis on Aaron is really a mistake. I follow this news
relatively closely, reading HN every day, and I don't really see how Aaron's
abusive prosecutors tie in to the NSA stuff.

The spying scandals are bad enough on their own. Adding Aaron's death into the
mix just muddles the message and confuses people who are less informed.

~~~
gaius
Indeed, it muddies the issue. I am anti-NSA-spying but I am also anti-
stealing-IP...

I should point out that I don't think Aaron should have been hounded to his
death (tho' equally if he were mentally ill, _anything_ could have pushed him
over the edge). But that doesn't make what he did right. It has for 20 years
baffled me that people can demand respect for the GPL et al but be happy to
ride roughshod over anyone else's licenses.

~~~
vidarh
The reason Aaron gets so much sympathy (EDIT: for what he _did_ as well as for
how he was treated) is that 1) a substantial portion of the JSTOR data is
_public domain_ , 2) a substantial portion of the rest is work _funded_ with
public money where it is controversial that it is only available under
copyright.

But even disregarding that, I don't get why you are baffled: The GPL is a
_hack_ intended to spread freedoms. Many who support the GPL do not support it
out of some desire to respect IP laws, but as a means of reducing the use of
more restrictive licenses. E.g. to maximise _access_ to knowledge or maximise
the ability to modify and use data.

Wanting the data in JSTOR freed up, possibly regardless of copyright status,
is entirely consistent with supporting the GPL in those cases.

For some this is a moral or ethical issue - it is perfectly possible to
consider the current state of copyright an immoral restriction of personal
freedoms.

~~~
gaius
Without IP, what stops people incorporating GPL code in their closed source
proprietary products? See you can't have your cake and eat it. Either you
believe there is a thing called a license which travels with your product and
binds the user as to how they can use it, or you don't, there isn't really any
middle ground there. The alternative is "everything is public domain!" in
which case, no GPL.

~~~
mcherm
I would expect that nearly any supporter of the GPL would also support a
change to the law that eliminated copyright restrictions on the use of code.

The purpose of the GPL is not to prevent people from modifying and building on
the code. The purpose... well, let me quote from
[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/quick-guide-
gplv3.html](http://www.gnu.org/licenses/quick-guide-gplv3.html) :

    
    
      There are four freedoms that every user should have:
    
        the freedom to use the software for any purpose,
    
        the freedom to change the software to suit your needs,
    
        the freedom to share the software with your friends and neighbors, and
    
        the freedom to share the changes you make.
    

The GPL is a clever legal "hack" to achieve this, by allowing the code to be
used only by others who agree to play by these rules. If the law were changed
to enforce these rules directly, then no GPL would be needed. And eliminating
intellectual property law restrictions on the use of code would get _almost_
all the way there. (Companies would still be free to "protect" their code
through secrecy: releasing only the compiled version and not the source code,
but decompilers are pretty darn effective.)

~~~
nl
_I would expect that nearly any supporter of the GPL would also support a
change to the law that eliminated copyright restrictions on the use of code._

WTF?!? No way! (although to be fair I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "use
of code").

 _Companies would still be free to "protect" their code through secrecy:
releasing only the compiled version and not the source code_

This is _exactly_ what the GPL is designed to avoid.

As you quoted above "the freedom to change the software to suit your needs" \-
that requires the source code!

~~~
betterunix
"This is exactly what the GPL is designed to avoid."

...sort of. Source code access is important, sure, but here are a few _more
important_ issues that are basically orthogonal:

* The right to redistribute software

* The right to modify software (without source code?!?! Sure; imagine if I took Windows, removed the license protection code, and distributed that copy to you).

* The right to use software -- this, incredibly, can be a problem:

[http://jalopnik.com/192843/robot-let-my-car-go-new-jersey-
ga...](http://jalopnik.com/192843/robot-let-my-car-go-new-jersey-garage-holds-
vehicles-hostage)

------
nhangen
Am I the only one bothered by how many people are invoking Aaron's ghost? The
intent might be pure, but it really bugs me when people speak for the dead.

And let's not forget, Aaron didn't pass away, he committed suicide. Case
related stressors may have caused this, but it's also not right to make him
the poster child for every anti-government/anti NSA campaign on the Internet.

~~~
l33tbro
Aaron was a pretty beautiful dude who had a clarity and pureness of intent to
ensuring that information be as free as possible. That Aaron suffered mental
illness, and the assumption that his legacy carry less value because he took
his own life is kind of gross and disrespectful. Mental illness is stigmatized
enough in our communities, and given a lot of the talk of HN users own
depression issues, I'm surprised to see statements like this here.

Movements like this are part of Aaron's legacy. We know not the will of the
dead. We can, however, celebrate the value and contribution of their lives.
His was extraordinary (though all too short). What is so wrong with continuing
the work he was so passionate about?

~~~
nhangen
I don't believe his legacy should carry less value at all. If anything, I'm
trying to defend his legacy so organizations like this will stop putting words
and actions in his mouth/body.

I find this campaign to be in bad taste and on the brink of classlessness,
despite the fact that I believe in the cause.

------
vinhboy
People always ask, why can't the progressives make their own Tea Party -- If
you read through the responses on this page you'll have your answer. So much
doubt and skepticism about everything...

It's funny all these people putting down "social networking", when most of us
here work for companies who pay a shit ton of money to advertise and gain
traction on "social networks". Then, on top of that, there are many of us here
working to build more and improve social networking.

You bitch about how the media is corrupting the public's mind, yet you scoff
at organizations that tries to use the media to rally for support of
meaningful causes....

Every. Single. Time. Someone wants to do something positive, you guys just
come and shit all over it.

I think the true slacktivism is people who bitch about slacktivism and offers
no other solutions.

~~~
guelo
this isn't a "progressive" issue, it cuts across partisan lines.

~~~
betterunix
Not really. This is a left-versus-right issue. Unfortunately, most major party
politicians are on the right wing of the spectrum.

------
jlgaddis
Yay, slacktivism!

\-----

 _edit: I wrote the above because there was no clear "call to action" other
than changing one's Facebook profile picture (seriously?) but, according to
the "Open Letter" [0], I guess we're all supposed to call our legislators that
day._

[0]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7037532](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7037532)

~~~
trustfundbaby
I thought so too, but the big banner has a way to find and call your political
representative about the issue. I'm just worried that the American populace
isn't sufficiently interested in the issue to do anything about it.

Now if the top 100 sites in the US shut down for a day in protest ...

~~~
gtirloni
To be honest, I had to go back to the website and read it again so I would
notice the suggestion to call the legislators. I think my brain has been
trained (based on hard evidence) to ignore that option as ineffective
(unfortunately).

------
pinaceae
as a non-US citizen this won't change anything for me.

"free society" here should be really re-worded to "free US society".

as long as there is a intelligence apparatus in the US at all, spying on the
rest of the world will continue. by definition.

the NSA is monitoring all internet traffic as it would be really hard to know
beforehand if it only pertains to US citizens. not sure what exactly you're
trying to achieve here. the NSA either monitors facebook or it doesn't.

~~~
rmc
The US Constitual protection for privacy only applies to US citizens. Would US
citizens be willing to amend it to make it apply to everyone.

~~~
PavlovsCat
Some things in the constitution apply only to citizens, most don't. When it
says person, it means person, not citizen. Educating people that this
prevalent view is false would already go a long way.

~~~
ewoodrich
However, this definition of "person" requires them to be subject to US law
(typically by residing in the US) which foreign residents of a foreign country
are not.

That is part of the reason we have a detention facility at Guantanemo.

~~~
PavlovsCat
It is not sufficient that the person acting on someone else is subject to US
law? That seems kinda broken. Do you have a link that elaborates on this? From
the 14th Amendment for example:

> No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or
> immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any
> person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny
> to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Note how it mentions citizens, any person, and persons within the jurisdiction
as three separate things... ?

------
gtirloni
If I got this right, we fight back by changing our avatars and putting banners
on our blogs. Is that it?

~~~
mcb3k
The banners appear to be able to let you put in your zip code and then help
you contact your relevant representatives in congress. If enough high-traffic
sites participate, like what happened with the SOPA blackout, I could see this
actually having an affect on policy.

However, there probably needs to some kind of bill to support or other action
to be urging representatives to do, other than contacting them saying that
"spying is bad". The Open Letter to HN from EFF, Demand Progress, and Cory
Doctorow [1] mentions some of these, but the campaign site here doesn't seem
to contain any mention of them.

[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7037532](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7037532)

~~~
whatevsbro
> If enough high-traffic sites participate, like what happened with the SOPA
> blackout, I could see this actually having an affect on policy.

The _policy_ didn't change with SOPA or CISPA or whatever name they've snuck
some of the same shit in by now. The policy is: more surveillance, more police
state, less liberty.

------
pron
This is a worthy cause, but I find it ironic that the page has so many links
to social networks that engage in spying on a scale comparable to that of the
NSA. And while the NSA was probably just collecting the information we know
that Google and Facebook actually _use_ it.

Saying that those services give you a choice not to use them is throwing sand
in our face. We know that Facebook and maybe Google, too, collect information
about people not using their services. They also track their users' behavior
when they're not expecting it. Worst of all is the fact that most people don't
fully grasp the deal those companies offer: they give you free services in
exchange for your private information.

This reminds me of that recent South Park episode where Cartman goes to
investigate the NSA while tweeting his every thought[1]. This kind of fight
requires serious thinking about privacy in this day and age. Sure, it's bad
that a government spies on people, but it isn't any better that some of the
world's most powerful corporations trick people into being spied on and into
becoming unknowing informants on their friends. This is a very serious and
very broad issue. Let's not make it just about the NSA.

[1]: [http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s17e01-let-
go-...](http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s17e01-let-go-let-gov)

------
terabytest
To me this looks pretty much like Don Quixote's fight against windmills.
Pointless, and won't really accomplish anything. Do you think the NSA, or
whoever else for that matter, would actually care about people changing their
profile picture or blacking out their website for a day? I believe protest
doesn't accomplish much, specifically if done in a frivolous way. This is
extremely frivolous.

~~~
themodelplumber
> Do you think the NSA, or whoever else for that matter, would actually care

What made you think that's the point of this? This isn't about convincing the
NSA of anything.

~~~
terabytest
This sentence from the page pretty much hints at that:

> Today we face a different threat, one that undermines the Internet, and the
> notion that any of us live in a genuinely free society: mass surveillance.

Let's not forget that the NSA revelations are at the base of the mass
surveillance outrage.

~~~
vidarh
Clearly part of addressing mass surveillance would be to get changes at the
NSA, but they are not the ones we need to make listen. Politicians are. US
politicians who support and fund the NSA or doesn't voice their opposition.
Politicians all over the world who allow their own surveillance organizations
to be complicit, or who are not putting enough pressure on the US government
to make it a foreign policy problem instead of merely a small nuisance.

And the large parts of the public who are not yet aware, or not aware enough
to care.

The NSA is at the very end of a very long list of targets, each one of which
may help put pressure on and/or have some power over the next target on the
list.

------
wanda
I would "fight back" but I have a job.

Who am I kidding? I would not fight back even if I did have the time. Even if
this were not horseshit. I would be dicking around with golang and flagging
banal questions on StackExchange.

~~~
angersock
I appreciate your candor, sir/madam.

------
sethbannon
It's long past time that we channel our outrage into political action on this
issue.

~~~
waterlesscloud
Everyone will just re-elect the same congressmen and senators who got us here.
Because theirs is different, of course.

~~~
mcherm
If it is your intention to assume that nothing can get any better so we should
just sit back and do nothing, then would you do me a favor? Would you please
start doing nothing BEFORE posting the "it's all hopeless" comment. From your
point of view it won't make any difference, but from the point of view of
those of us who think that one can (on the whole) make (slow) progress by
speaking up and taking action it _will_ make a difference.

------
return0
Yeah, let's fight online surveillance through facebook, google and the other
NSA-approved social media.

How about instead we save some energy and invest it in better encryption and
security?

~~~
systematical
So facebook and google are now "NSA-approved" how can I get my products and
services NSA approved?

~~~
return0
You can't. It's an invite-only elite club.

------
ironchief
What are the specific goals and modes of action for this protest? (e.g. laws
to pass, laws to vote against, people to fire etc.)

~~~
donotsurveil
Apparently it's post a banner on a website, register on facebook, google+ and
twitter to post there that you are against surveillance.

A nice attempt at sorting out people through self-selection who are to be put
on a special surveillance list.

~~~
flurpitude
Well, if you're politically opposed to the NSA's surveillance they probably
already know, so it won't make much difference whether you've revealed support
for this campaign. The bigger problem is that the campaign seems entirely
vacuous. What exactly are we doing to fight back? Complaining a little bit
online? The NSA must be running scared.

------
bambax
The often mentioned quote from B. Franklin (reproduced in the linked site)
about "any society" giving up a little liberty for a little security and
deserving neither is I think quite funny, because giving up liberty in
exchange for security is the very definition of society.

Society is not about liberty; it's about control, surveillance, obedience, in
exchange from keeping aliens at bay.

If everyone's my brother I don't need "society", because there are no aliens.

On the other hand, if every brother is a potential or covert alien, then I
need a very intense system of control.

I'm not sure it's possible to have society without surveillance; they are
sides of the same coin.

~~~
marcosdumay
Society is a bunch of people gathering togheter because they are happier that
way. If everybody is your brother, you won't be any better living alone in a
field.

Yeah, other people always come with some kind of surveilance and disagreement,
but that's a consequence, not the goal.

~~~
bambax
> _Society is a bunch of people gathering together because they are happier
> that way._

How is that? You're born in a given society (country) and usually you never
change societies, so there's no choice involved.

~~~
marcosdumay
You can move to some non-urbanized area, and just cut communications with
anybody else. (Yes, you can not completely cut away because of taxes, but you
can to a huge degree.)

Almost nobody likes that option.

------
j_baker
It's nice to see that important national issues have been reduced to social
media campaigns. It's going to take more than Twitter messages and Reddit
comments to take down the NSA though.

Something tells me that Aaron would be pissed that they're using his name this
way. Aaron got arrested for actually _fighting_ for openness, not tweeting
about how he supports openness. If you want to fight the NSA, write your
member of Congress. Join a protest. Leak info about what the government is
doing. But please don't just post messages to your Facebook so you can feel
like you're doing something.

------
callcongressnow
[reposting this from another comment for visibility]

Ever since the NSA business leaked, I've been thinking about this problem. It
took me a few months to wrap my head around all the crazy stuff that's been
going on but I've started building some systems that I think might have a
chance of helping out.

"Call Congress Now"\- using Twilio, you can call Congress folk from your
browser (for free).

[http://www.callcongressnow.org/](http://www.callcongressnow.org/)

Here are some Congress people who some consider are doing some shady stuff:
[http://www.callcongressnow.org/profile/F000062](http://www.callcongressnow.org/profile/F000062)
[http://www.callcongressnow.org/profile/L000174](http://www.callcongressnow.org/profile/L000174)

But it's pretty hard to get the word out about websites like that. In a sense,
nobody passively cares enough to call Congress. Only when the Congress folks
do something that brings about outrage do people care enough to really pick up
the phone (or click the twilio button, as it were). So I built the
/u/CongressionalHound, a bot on reddit that hunts for mentions of current
sitting members of Congress in submitted articles and displays information
about them in the comments:

[http://www.reddit.com/user/CongressionalHound/comments/](http://www.reddit.com/user/CongressionalHound/comments/)

If you are a mod and want me to run the bot on your subreddit, PM the bot and
I'll have it saunter on over and get to work. Slowly putting the bot on
subreddits that give me permission or invite me to. My hope is that when
articles about the NSA, or Obamacare, or the shutdown, or or or any big
political issue comes up, that the bot will channel people towards getting in
touch with their representatives and senators and effectively voicing their
opinions.

Both of these are prototypes and there are major known bugs in both, but I
think they can serve as examples of systems that could help citizens better
impact their government through the power of the internet.

~~~
bendoernberg
That bot is amazing!

~~~
callcongressnow
Thank you! It's actually really dumb. Like, it's piping out to Readability and
then just searching for capitalized pairs of words and then pounding a hash-
map for look ups of Congress folks. MVP or something right?

[https://github.com/zmaril/CongressionalHound](https://github.com/zmaril/CongressionalHound)

------
nathanb
How in the world is this "fighting back"?

Did I just skim over a paragraph somewhere on the site? All I see are banners,
social media buttons, and a mask to put over your profile picture.

Raising awareness is fine and good, but thanks to Ed Snowden (who fought back
in a much more effective way than by changing his gravatar), we already know
that the NSA are spying on everyone, everywhere.

They stuck a Ben Franklin quote on there. It's a good quote. But where are the
public officials running on a pro-surveillance platform? Whose door should we
beat down while carrying our torches and pitchforks? That battle is lost
several times a second when we voluntarily step into the body scanner at the
airport that both the TSA and the terrorists know doesn't catch everything.

I'm not ready to start a revolution. And I just don't feel like anything less
than a revolution will do, at this point. The only thing I can do is leave --
and hope that my new home isn't doing the same thing or worse without having
been caught yet.

But this sucks. I hate feeling powerless. So I guess I'm off to post some
witty anti-NSA propaganda to my Facebook page!

------
elchief
How about companies pledge to never hire NSA staff? Close the accounts of and
ban surveillance supporters and their families?

------
donotsurveil
Calling upon what a dead person would have done if not dead is something I
have a hard time getting behind. But using facebook, google + and twitter to
fight back against surveillance made it clear that this whole initiative is a
joke and a bad poorly executed one.

I wish those guys luck in trying to push against government surveillance
towards private for profit transnational corporations' surveillance, but there
is no way I would support this kind of initiative.

Either you fight against surveillance or you don't, but fighting some form of
surveillance and promoting another is not fight against surveillance.

------
jheriko
Hmmm this is all well and good, but what do we expect NSA and GCHQ to do
instead?

I don't especially like them or what they do, but we need them... I'm also
surprised at the massive backlash and the revelatory nature of the Snowden
leaks... I was expecting that NSA and GCHQ would engage in precisely these
kinds of activities - its exactly what they are there for - I am surprised
that anyone ever had any different expectations, but clearly a large majority
did.

Are we suggesting that society has come far enough that we can do without
espionage altogether?

~~~
sp332
More-specific investigations to uncover actual threats, real court oversight,
and making sure that protections written into law are enforced during data
collection.

~~~
gaius
If GCHQ and the NSA were actually dedicated to securing our networks that
would be a start, e.g. helping businesses and individuals migrate to SELinux
or something.

------
redthrowaway
Feb 11th is after the SOTU, where Obama will announce what will in effect be
the only changes we're likely to see. Any attempt to influence policy should
come before that.

~~~
sinak
We did consider this very, very carefully. Our conclusion was that any reforms
that Obama announces are very unlikely to result in meaningful change, and
that legislation will still be necessary. Had we set the date before the SOTU,
our activism would have concluded with no way to respond to his proposals.

~~~
fuqua
So, what's your plan re: pushing legislation? Have you identified who in
Congress will serve as a champion for your cause? Are there any lists of
specific demands that any good legislation would address? Changing your avatar
on Facebook, Twitter, or G+ won't sway anyone.

------
ilaksh
To me its obvious that the current paradigm with a central government that has
a monopoly on force and businesses competing against each other with a mandate
to increase profits is outdated. I think we need to experiment with rethinking
fundamental societal structures in a way that incorporates our current science
and technology.

------
carlosdp
You lost me at "(and [spying on] everyone else too)". Spying on other
countries is what the NSA is built to do, and it's for good reason. Every
country does it, that's how geopolitics work. The issue people have here is
spying on US Citizens, which is not what they're supposed to be doing.

~~~
l33tbro
Poppycock. Give me some "good reasons" why spying on the private lives of
citizens of ally countries is not an act of terrorism?

~~~
dragonwriter
> Give me some "good reasons" why spying on the private lives of citizens of
> ally countries is not an act of terrorism?

Because terrorism is the use of violence or threat of violence directed at
civilian populations or otherwise outside the generally accepted norms of
warfare to effect political change, and spying, while it may _support_ the use
or threat of violence, is, in and of itself, neither the use nor threat of
violence.

~~~
marcosdumay
Well, is blackmail a kind of violence? (honest question)

~~~
dragonwriter
Doesn't really matter, because as with violence (or “other forms of violence”,
if you prefer), spying isn’t blackmail, even if it might be used to support
blackmail.

~~~
marcosdumay
Spying is as good a "threat of blackmail" as one can get.

------
noonespecial
You know what would be better than putting a banner on a site and tweeting
your "outrage"? Giving a buck to the EFF. Or two. Do that other stuff if it
makes you feel better, but if you want to make a difference, call a
congressman, and give a pittance to people who specialize in doing the same.

------
pekk
I am probably the only person who is bothered that this sounds like a deniable
call to violent action. "BE CREATIVE"

edit: to be clearer - the issue is that we have left violent action open as an
option and it isn't hard for a few people to take that option. Is this what we
want politics to be?

~~~
aaronem
You're probably the only person who is bothered, because you are probably the
only person who can see anything remotely resembling a "call to violent
action" in something as milquetoast as the nonsense we're discussing.

~~~
rhizome
I see what the GP is talking about though, and would probably explain it as
"fight" being used as a malapropism, not as a rallying ethic. That is, calling
something "fighting" which is pretty much the furthest thing from it, rather
than exhorting people to fight in whatever way they deem fit.

------
Create
We begin therefore where they are determined not to end, with the question
whether any form of democratic self-government, anywhere, is consistent with
the kind of massive, pervasive, surveillance into which the Unites States
government has led not only us but the world.

This should not actually be a complicated inquiry.

[http://snowdenandthefuture.info/events.html](http://snowdenandthefuture.info/events.html)

[http://benjamin.sonntag.fr/Moglen-at-Re-Publica-Freedom-
of-t...](http://benjamin.sonntag.fr/Moglen-at-Re-Publica-Freedom-of-thought-
requires-free-media)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ciscosystemsrouteratcern....](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ciscosystemsrouteratcern.jpg)

Why would dead links help?

------
BrandonMarc
_In January 2012 we defeated the SOPA and PIPA censorship legislation with the
largest Internet protest in history._

Funny ... no mention of CISPA, which interestingly was _not_ heavily protested
like SOPA and PIPA were, is reputed to be worse, and while initially passed in
November 2011 was passed again in April 2013 after SOPA and PIPA were
defeated.

Thankfully, it never passed the Senate ... but I wouldn't call that a "win"
compared to the victory over SOPA / PIPA.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber_Intelligence_Sharing_and_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber_Intelligence_Sharing_and_Protection_Act)

------
tmsh
You need a law or a bill. And then the protest (and ensuing momentum if
companies are incentivized to blackout their sites because it's strongly in
their interests) pushes the lever for lawmakers.

------
Joeboy
Let's try to be positive about this.

Presumably the NSA's capacities are limited by its budget. Presumably its
budget is limited by political considerations. Presumably a popular social
networking campaign, however lame, will be impact on politicians' willingness
to lavish funds upon it.

I'd rather everybody involved set up and promoted GPG instead, but that
probably isn't going to happen.

------
jsumrall
You lost me by leading with a big picture of Aaron.

------
psi_rockin
I'd prefer to see "The Day We Fight Back" be used to promote mass adoption of
stronger security measures and encryption.

~~~
marcosdumay
And some alternative to centralized social networks.

------
mcgwiz
Ironically, at the moment the link to their own Privacy Policy page is broken.
(I notified them by email.)

[https://thedaywefightback.org/privacy.html](https://thedaywefightback.org/privacy.html)

------
wnevets
If I join this wont they go out of their way to spy on me?

~~~
marcosdumay
Yes.

And if you don't join it, they'll also go out of their way to spy on you.

------
Zarathust
I'm so angry I put a banner on my website. While I greatly support the cause,
I doubt the effects this "online protest" will have.

------
pdfcollect
Hopefully someday we can use this to help:
[http://bit.ly/blibonline](http://bit.ly/blibonline)

------
riffraff
I'm on a shitty airport connection and I tried to load the page 3 times before
I was able to read content. Just saying.

------
botolo
I wonder whether they obtained proper license to use a frame from "The Big
Lebowski" for their internet meme

------
shocks
Great idea, but does it have to be so American? We're getting spied on over
here in the UK too.

------
znowi
Unsurprisingly, none of the PRISM gang companies support this initiative.

------
D9u
We can't forget the corporate culpability in this matter...

------
calroc
It bothers me that otherwise intelligent people are taking so long to realize
that ubiquitous surveillance is never going away.

I would have exterminated humanity in the 80's if it hadn't been for
ubiquitous surveillance.

------
pistle
KonyLives2014.org

------
whatevsbro
So, something like this:

    
    
      People: "Stop spying on us!"
         NSA: "Well, we kind of want to, but if you insist.."
      People: "Alright then, cool."
        (NSA calmly continues doing whatever they damn well please)
    
    

Here's an alternative version:

    
    
      People: "Stop spying on us!"
         NSA: "Fuck you, peasants."
      People: "No, fuck you! We'll write to some thoroughly
               corrupt sociopaths and they'll stop your spying
               because they care about our well-being!!"
         NSA: "Good luck with that."
        (NSA calmly continues doing whatever they damn well please)
    

The _actual_ problem is the existence of the NSA and governments in the first
place. They're not accountable to us for anything they do, until there's a
revolution, and then the cycle just starts over. The real solution is to stop
believing that anyone has the right to rule anyone else.

~~~
tstactplsignore
>The actual problem is the existence of the NSA

>and governments

That escalated quickly.

~~~
whatevsbro
Sure, but it's true.

Think about it for a moment. They operate in complete secrecy behind the
scenes. You have no power over them, but they have _massive_ power over you.
Clearly, neither the NSA nor the government are accountable to you or people
in general because you simply have no recourse against any injustice they
commit against you. If the government imprisons you without due process, for
example, you're effectively supposed to complain about it _to the very same
government_ , which will then.. punish itself?

In what alternate universe is this a good arrangement?

~~~
Karunamon
>They operate in complete secrecy behind the scenes. You have no power over
them, but they have massive power over you.

 _We_ vote these people into office. _We_ have the power. The government _is
people_ \- just people _we 've_ decided get extra power so they can get things
done.

Please, please, please don't ever forget this. The moment you start thinking
of the government as some impenetrable adversary, you've already lost. Being
politically active is how change happens, not falling into the dems-vs-
republicans-vs-whoever trap of "the other guy is bad".

The government is us.

~~~
mirano
When you vote, you actually give credibility to, and thus your implicit
acceptance of the results, whether or not they are in your favour.

You play the game that is stacked 100% in their favour, and you cannot expect
to win. Your vote or that of even 1 million (or even 10 million) other people
will not change 1 single micron of the overall outcome. Think of all the well-
intentioned people in the past, say 100 years or so, that in all good
conscience cast their vote, just hoping to make that change. Did that positive
change happen? Of course not, look where we are.

Bow out and make other changes to protect yourself; voting is the least
effective use of your time.

~~~
djur
There hasn't been a large-scale violent uprising in the United States for
almost 150 years. The US and state governments of today have continuity from
that point.

In that time period legitimate democratic processes have brought about the
40-hour work week; the abolition of child labor; substantial improvements in
the legal rights and protection of women, racial minorities, and sexual
minorities; regulatory systems to protect the purity and wholesomeness of food
and the efficacy and safety of medication; programs like Social Security and
Medicare which have virtually eliminated the kind of wide-scale destitution of
the elderly that previous generations had seen; environmental protections for
water and air; and a host of other reforms enacted for the popular interest
and by popular demand.

Many other democratic nations in the world can tell the same story about the
20th century as well.

These achievements are all incomplete and flawed, and obviously there have
been many outrages, but modern democracies are by and large the most humane,
least violent, and most responsive governments in human history.

~~~
whatevsbro
> modern democracies are by and large the most humane, least violent, and most
> responsive governments in human history.

That's because their tax cattle is still docile. You see, as long as people
remain obedient and calm, governments don't need to get violent. That's the
way _outright_ slavery works too: a slave-master only whips his slaves when
they resist him.

Make no mistake though, governments are not your friends. They don't give a
fuck about your well-being, and they're not here to help humanity. It's the
exact opposite.

------
ripaaron
"The Day We Fight Back" and there's facebook like-button on the page. The
hypocrisy is overwhelming.

------
stefan_kendall
Modifying websites is not "fighting back". Your time is wasted and meaningless
and will not evoke change.

------
cdoxsey
Meh. I wasn't all that surprised by the NSA revelations. I think Snowden is a
traitor and the US government (like any government) has legitimate reasons to
spy on people.

The problem with this "movement" is that it fails to make an argument for its
beliefs. It's just pure group-think.

> Today we face a different threat, one that undermines the Internet, and the
> notion that any of us live in a genuinely free society: mass surveillance.

An NSA data mining robot reading my facebook wall is no more a threat to my
freedom than Google reading my gmail. The threat comes from the abuse of that
information: that some politician (or Google employee) has it out for me and
blackmails me (or something like that). Maybe I'll get upset when we have
evidence of that happening a bunch.

And though many people don't believe it anymore, there is in fact a real
threat on the other side of this: there are actual terrorists in the world who
want to kill Americans.

Now here's something I can't figure out: the very people up in arms about the
NSA spying on us think that it's a great idea for the government to know all
the most intimate details of my life via a government-run single-payer
healthcare system.

Uncle Sam reading my latest tweet seems a whole lot less intrusive on my
freedom than him telling me I must go to the doctor, get insurance, quit
smoking, lose some weight, not eat or drink certain kinds of foods...

