
An Open Letter to HN from EFF, Demand Progress, and Cory Doctorow - davidsegal
Dear HN,<p>Two years ago you joined in fighting back against dangerous Internet censorship legislation during the SOPA protests. You blacked out your websites, lobbied your employers to do the same, and started creative campaigns to defeat a threat to freedom on the Internet.<p>As was often the case, Aaron Swartz said it best: “[We defeated SOPA] because everyone made themselves the hero of their own story.” [1]<p>In the last 6 months it’s been revealed that government agencies, like the NSA and GCHQ, have twisted laws to create the legal and technical infrastructure for mass surveillance. Surveillance precipitates a dark form of censorship: people become afraid to speak freely. It undermines our security and restricts our ability to communicate privately.<p>With SOPA we had a clear goal: defeat a specific bill. In this case, we have promising bills (like the USA Freedom Act) and terrible ones (the FISA Improvements Act). But if progress is to be made, we need to send a message to our legislators that we won’t let the Internet be turned into a tool for mass surveillance. We need to push them to have the courage to support comprehensive reform.<p>Today, on the eve of the anniversary of Aaron’s death, we’d like to ask you to step up once again in defense of a free, open and secure Internet. In memory of Aaron, we’d ask that you to join us in a month of activism, culminating in a day of action on February 11th.<p>Our organizations—Demand Progress, EFF, and others—will be doing everything we can. We’re creating a banner that sites can add on the day and built a campaign website [2]. But for this to be a real success, each of us must again be the hero of their own story.<p>Will you join us?<p>Rainey Reitman, Activism Director, EFF<p>David Segal, Co-founder, Demand Progress<p>Cory Doctorow, Co-editor of Boing Boing<p>[1] http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.democracynow.org&#x2F;2013&#x2F;1&#x2F;14&#x2F;freedom_to_connect_aaron_swartz_1986<p>[2] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;thedaywefightback.org
======
chimeracoder
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 work, single-point events stand out more than continual progress,
and we get discouraged when the former seem to have less effect that we'd
like.

My work was related to drug policy specifically[0]. During the years that I
was actively involved in this, there was very little visible progress on the
issues I worked on. We managed to pass a Good Samaritan law[1] in New York
state (which I was involved with), but that was the only major success that I
can remember, amid a long stream of what seemed to be failures.

On the other hand, when it rains, it pours. We've see a number of major
successes very recently on this front (not just with marijuana policy, thought
that's what gets the most attention). Looking back, the state of drug policy
in 2014 is in many areas much brighter than it was in 2006, even though it
certainly didn't seem like we were making any progress at the time.

It's easy to get cynical about large-scale, long-term efforts. As an
individual, you're right, it's tough to do much on your own, since no
individual has the same stamina as the forces that we're fighting. But showing
support for groups that _are_ fighting these longer battles is the best way to
see some real action, even if it takes a while to incubate.

[0] On HN, that's oftentimes synonymous with "marijuana policy" \- while that
was certainly a part of it, my work focused more on the effects of drug laws
on students (such as the Higher Education Act) and the socioeconomic impact of
an incarceration model.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_samaritan_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_samaritan_law)

~~~
autotravis
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.

~~~
bananacurve
>U.S. surveillance problem

As long as people are willing to pretend that the problem is only the US and
not the entire West colluding then the easier it is for these governments to
continue.

~~~
dmix
Case in point, the Canadian government is currently building "the most
expensive government building ever constructed in Canada" for CSEC (our
version of the NSA) and vastly expanding their headcount:

[http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/inside-canada-s-top-
secret-b...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/inside-canada-s-top-secret-
billion-dollar-spy-palace-1.1930322)

And GCHQ has less significantly legal restrictions than most other SIGINT
agencies.

~~~
canistr
I feel like the cost is always overblown about this building if you consider
the fact that they are currently housed in a building originally designed for
the CBC in the '60s and not for actual security work. Given the expansion of
their operations and personnel, it only makes sense to create a new building
(not coincidentally beside CSIS). And generally speaking, it's going to cost
what it's going to cost. Yes it's a government building. Yes they've spent
money on particular luxury items (identified as being used to increase social
interaction). But if you want people working more effectively and efficiently,
you're going to spend money to increase morale (just look at all the lavish
spending at startups or ones that are even IPOing, they're all expenses that,
at the end of the day, may not be good in the eyes of the shareholders. But
they help employee morale).

------
sinak
We had to cut down Aaron's quote to hit the HN 2k character limit, but the
full quote we originally intended to use was:

"[We defeated SOPA] because everyone made themselves the hero of their own
story. Everyone took it as their job to save this crucial freedom. They threw
themselves into it. They did whatever they could think of to do."

Very much hoping the community will rally around and join us in this. In
particular, startups and larger tech companies (Google, Facebook, Microsoft,
Twitter, etc.) don't get involved with this kind of activism easily. If you
care about this issue and work at a tech company, you're the only ones who can
exert pressure from within.

~~~
bowlofpetunias
Those larger tech companies you mention are on the other side of the fence
when it comes to surveillance and privacy.

And I'm not even talking about the accusations of complicity (or have we
forgotten that was the opening salvo in the NSA revelations, followed by a
boilerplate non-denial and an eery silence?), but the fact that these
companies regularly violate privacy laws (at least outside the US) and lobby
against privacy protection.

Especially for me as a non-American, the US government and US tech companies
like Google and Facebook are two sides of the same coin.

Of course they (or their employees) don't get involved, and they shouldn't.
That would be like Elsevier getting involved with supporting Open Access.

~~~
csense
Put yourself in the shoes of a hypothetical progressive tech company. You
receive a letter from the government asking you to copy all your network
traffic to the NSA for analysis. Threatening serious jail time if you resist
or reveal the existence of the letter.

Your lawyers say all that appears to be legal and legitimate, and informal
discussions with other tech executives reveal that everybody in your industry
does it and it's no big deal.

It takes a lot of courage to resist.

Now that the scope of the surveillance has been revealed, and it's become
clear that most of the technology culture, and a big chunk of the general
public, is on your side. And the risk of consequences like jail time is much
less if you're no longer talking about the government's specific activities in
your case, but things that have been published in major newspapers.

It suddenly becomes a lot easier to make a strong statement.

> Elsevier getting involved with supporting Open Access

That's not a fair comparison at all. Open access to scientific research would
totally kill Elsevier's main revenue source. The main revenue source for e.g.
Google or Verizon is customers, not the NSA. Surveillance reform wouldn't kill
their primary business models.

~~~
znowi
I can not accept a "I had to follow orders" rationalization, especially from
the giants like Google. It was routinely used by the Nazi officers at the
Nuremberg Trials. They had orders, were "afraid of reprimand", and so they
went along.

There's a moral conduct that is above paper orders. Each one of us decides how
to act when we face a contradiction. Aaron, Snowden - they did one thing.
Google, Facebook - did another.

------
callcongressnow
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 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 on reddit 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.

~~~
bushido
Maybe we need to take the shawshank redemption approach "Still, I'd like to
try, with your permission. I'll send a letter a week. They can't ignore me
forever."

Let's build automated tools allowing people to send out letters, signed
petitions, emails, faxes, pre-recorded voicemail etc.

That would would potentially eliminate procrastination.

Just a thought.

~~~
callcongressnow
A friend worked at a congress person's office a while back. When I told her
about automating calls, she was not pleased. Very high noise to signal ratio.
I think that effort would be better invested in informing the public and
giving them better tools than mindlessly spamming their offices.

[https://github.com/zmaril/callcongressnow/issues/1](https://github.com/zmaril/callcongressnow/issues/1)

~~~
sitkack
This is an excellent idea, thanks for making this.

Along with calling, it might be helpful to have a wiki that outlined the
issues and talking points. People often care, but then feel like they don't
have enough depth of knowledge to take action.

At very least it would be nice to point to one.

------
mildtrepidation
Perhaps I'm missing something, but is there anything _actually being planned_
aside from... a website? It's good that people are trying to do something, but
putting up banners on the web and starting yet another website isn't _doing
something._

Are you going to organize rallies? Provide logistical support for people who
want to do so? Even a snail mail campaign would be an improvement over Yet
Another Complaint On The Internet.

Don't get me wrong: The cause is great, and drawing attention and support to
it is important. But this might as well be a high-profile version of trolling
a forum. It's not going to help anything unless you take action that will
reach the people in charge _and_ the people who might not currently be aware
of what's going on and how important it is.

I don't see this doing much of either.

------
l33tbro
This 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.

------
pvnick
For whatever it's worth, I cast my vote in favor of this. It's been wonderful
reading Paul Graham's comments voicing opposition to the illegal surveillance,
and I would urge the HN community to adopt this stance as official policy. I
believe we're either very close or right on the edge of a tipping point in
public opinion, and this kind of concerted action may just push it over the
edge.

------
esbranson
I 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

------
aragot
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
in unlimited way.

~~~
john_b
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 doesn't change that.

~~~
rosser
_Frankly, U.S. Congressmen don 't care what foreigners think about U.S.
surveillance policy._

Frankly, U.S. Congressmen don't care what _Americans_ think about U.S.
surveillance policy.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Frankly, U.S. Congressmen don't care what Americans think about U.S.
> surveillance policy.

They clearly do, because they spend quite a bit of effort trying to shape what
Americans think about it, which is inconsistent with not caring what Americans
think.

~~~
rosser
They're concerned with they _want_ Americans to think about surveillance.
That's markedly different from caring what we _actually_ think.

~~~
dragonwriter
> They're concerned with they want Americans to think about surveillance.
> That's markedly different from caring what we actually think.

Having a desire for somone to think a particular thing about a subject is
_exactly_ caring what they actually think about a subject.

I think the distinction you want to draw is more between _being influenced by_
what Americans actually think, on the one hand, and _attempting to influence_
what Americans actually think, on the other.

But then, again, the only rational reason for members of Congress to try to
influence what Americans think is because they think that what Americans
actually think impacts the prospects for their political agenda, e.g., by
influencing their likelihood of getting elected or influencing the behavior of
other members of Congress or the President (perhaps by influencing those
actors electoral prospects), so, really, I think that even that distinction is
somewhat false. The reason politicians want to shape opinions is _because_
politicians actions _do_ respond to opinions.

~~~
abofh
I believe the hypothesis is stated as "Foreign legs good, American legs
better"

------
hnha
With all due respect, using Aaron Schwartz's case about copyright as motivator
for the case against surveillance seems weird. Why do you even need some
personification?

~~~
bendoernberg
I didn't know Aaron Swartz, but my understanding is that surveillance and
whistleblowing were important issues for him. For instance, he developed
software for anonymous whistleblowing for those like Edward Snowden:
[http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/aaron-swartz-inbox-for-
whis...](http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/aaron-swartz-inbox-for-
whistleblowers-is-back-with-an-nsa-proof-makeover)

~~~
randallsquared
"surveillance and whistleblowing were important issues for him"

There you've conflated them again, and then provided another point about
Swartz being in favor of access to information. You specifically did not
address the grandparent's question about why Swartz would be against access to
information for some cases and for access to information in other cases.

I'm not suggesting that he wouldn't (I don't know offhand, but it's clear that
pro-whistleblowing folks often self-identify as anti-surveillance, too), but
it's not clear what information-related principles are being used to justify
these positions.

~~~
zipdog
I don't think there is a necessary contradiction in "favoring access" to
government-promoted or funded arts and sciences, as well as "favoring access"
to full disclosure of surveillance programs and desiring effective judicial
oversight, and not "favoring access" when the government wants to have a large
amount of data about the lives of its citizens.

The current surveillance is being performed without oversight and in secret:
so a "favoring access" stance aligns with wanting full disclosure of the
surveillance, and a judicial process that allows for oversight of what is
being surveilled and when.

Within the surveillance issue is a desire for privacy (which is not "favouring
access" to information, as you note), which I think comes from two issues:
that the government is a public institution for the public good and so it has
less expectation of privacy than an individual. and also that there is a power
imbalance between what the ability to act on information between governments
and other entities, and an individual.

Publicly-funded research that the public is denied access to is an issue of
both government openness and power imbalance.

Government promotion of the arts and sciences (which is the reason for
copyright) being used to unduly deny the public access to aspects arts and
sciences falls into both as well, IMHO.

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

------
salient
I 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).

------
salient
Relevant news: NSA and GCHQ activities appear illegal, says EU parliamentary
inquiry

[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/09/nsa-gchq-
illega...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/09/nsa-gchq-illegal-
european-parliamentary-inquiry)

------
mkempe
No matter how imperfect this initiative is, it is so much better than nothing.
I frankly never grok the negativism. (Is it a form of nihilism?) I give to the
EFF. I speak up whenever the subject comes up. You can, too, and you should
find your personal path to support freedom. Our freedom. "An injury to one is
an injury to all." Aaron's persecution and death was an injury to all. The
Clipper chip was crushed under Clinton -- many other interferences with our
lives can and must be crushed. It's never over, it's always worth fighting.

If you think it's insufficient action, _you_ be our new Sam Adams or Patrick
Henry! I'll join, with determination and passion.

------
adventured
I strongly disagree with the way you're using Aaron Swartz / his memory here.

~~~
cpymchn
At first reading, I too am uncomfortable enlisting someone's memory like this.
Not sure why. And not that I am on one side or the other, but at first thought
I would have said advocating for reform to the CFAA would be a more fitting to
tribute to Aaron's memory. No?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act)

I didn't know him but I am not trying to rally around him for a cause either.

------
Futurebot
A general comment on the nature of activism and the political process: one of
the goals of activism in the political area is to move both public sentiment
(awareness / consciousness raising) and public policy. Now, one of the things
to realize here is that this is a never-ending back and forth process, and
sometimes the same battles are fought in different forms over time - and this
can be incredibly frustrating unless you realize that this is the case. It's
easy to believe that it's like fixing a bug; once you've patched
policy/changed the mind of society on a topic, that it's fixed forever. Not
so. New forms of an idea pick up; your favored policy falls out of favor due
to changing events/other beliefs/ideologies/cultures that become popular; a
new generation is born that has none of the bad experiences you had, and can
have bad policies foisted on them; zombie ideas rise from the grave once more.

This can be disheartening, frustrating, even despondency-inducing. I've been
there more than once, and activists across the world have probably been
experiencing this since the first protest happened outside the first town
hall.

For those stating "it will do nothing" \- it can sometimes be hard to see the
distant / second-order effects, but they do matter. Registering dissent
matters. Now, I would add that there is a threshold beyond which activism
loses its potency (for a variety of possible reasons) and you need to go to
the next level (everything from non-violent resistance to revolutions.) In
this particular case, we're nowhere near that, and by the looks of it, the
tide is firmly against the anti-surveillance bloc, so pile on.

Finally, I'd say that the idea that the arc of the universe bends towards
justice is wrong; people bend societies towards it.

~~~
PavlovsCat
I would like to add that there is another goal of activism, IMHO: solidarity
among activists. Demonstrations don't just demonstrate to the outside world,
they also demonstrate to the participants. When things look bleak this is very
important. In the 60s, people would do sit-ins and sing together - maybe not
because that was the most effective way to bring about change, but simply
because it was a good additional thing to do. Every bit helps, nothing is
wasted.

------
hugofirth
This might seem like an off the wall idea but as (in my mind ) this issue is
part policy and part engineering problem, would co-ordinated themed hackathons
focused around the idea of creating disruptive & secure communication
techniques and protocols both further this general cause and appeal to the HN
crowd at large?

~~~
chill1
This is already being worked on by a few folks. [1][2]

If you have the skills and drive to help, I would suggest looking into those
two projects.

[1] [https://crypto.cat/](https://crypto.cat/)

[2] [https://whispersystems.org/](https://whispersystems.org/)

------
dfc
As a long time EFF supporter in spirit and dollars I have to say this is a
strange way of coalition building. Since ycombinator previously supported a
similar effort it seems like they would be thought of as allies. Whenever I
have been involved in a project like this allies and previous supporters were
contacted privately. This sort of "open letter" is the kind of thing you do to
pressure (read shame) someone into doing something that they have expressed
reservations about doing.

I still support the cause but this is not how you treat friends or conduct a
political activism campaign.

Addendum:

It is possible that the folks at ycombinator were previously contacted. If
that is the case this letter should say so, if only to let current allies know
that they do not need to worry about being bullied into continued support.

------
znowi
Did this letter get a penalty? With 581 points, it's now off the front page.

EDIT: Interestingly enough, "Female Founders" plea to the public by PG is at
360 points, whooping 402 comments, and the 2nd place. Clearly, "sexism" drama
is a lot more popular with the tech crowd :)

------
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)

------
Jd
I personally think of this as pg's site and us all as honored guests here. I'm
not opposed to the idea of an open letter on principle, but I do have a little
bit of an issue with a letter addressed to HN in general.

I also personally take issue with Aaron Swartz as a poster child for SOPA
related activism. There are many of us who did what we could to prevent SOPA
and who are opposed to illegal aspects of mass surveillance who nonetheless
believe in a proper place for intellectual property.

------
undoware
Only if we can call ourselves 'Agents of S.H.E.L.L.'.

~~~
sitkack
Better than CREEP.

------
zt
I agree with the message and the goal but why is this an open letter rather
than just an email to PG? Rather, the subject seems confused. It could be
they're trying to reach all the HN users, but when they write "You blacked out
your websites, lobbied your employers to do the same, and started creative
campaigns to defeat a threat to freedom on the Internet" that seems directed
at the people who run HN.

~~~
ericd
I think they're talking about the readers of HN, many of whom are workers in
tech and represent many more websites than just HN. HN blacking out would do
relatively little to affect public opinion, all of the websites represented by
HN users would do much more.

------
vanni
Clickable links:

[1]
[http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/14/freedom_to_connect_aar...](http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/14/freedom_to_connect_aaron_swartz_1986)

[2] [https://thedaywefightback.org](https://thedaywefightback.org)

------
esbranson
> Will you join us?

"Not wittingly."

------
smoyer
I'm not willing to demand progress, but I DEMAND MY CORY DOCTOROW! RIGHT NOW!
PLEASE?

------
roopeshv
can someone verify user id davidsegal?

~~~
sethbannon
I can. It's the same David Segal that's a signatory to the letter.

~~~
efdee
can someone verify user id sethbannon?

------
pearjuice
Call 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](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.

~~~
mhurron
It appears to be nothing but slactivism.

At least everyone involved will fee like they did something.

~~~
hdevalence
Whereas you get the smug satisfaction of feeling superior to people who are
actually doing anything at all.

~~~
mhurron
Actually I get the smug satisfaction of not wasting my time.

This is not doing anything, but damn if you don't feel like it.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
Just like the online action against SOPA/PIPA was a waste of time and didn't
do anything?

~~~
mhurron
You mean how shutting the a site down for a day actually showed people what
would happen if SOPA passed? Wikipedia participated in the SOPA protest,
wikipedias users did not, they were impacted by Wikipedia's participation.

That seems EXACTLY like changing your avatar and spamming Facebook. How does
spamming Facebook or changing your avatar show the effects of the NSA's
spying?

That is how it is useless. It does nothing.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
Part of the issue with mass surveillance is that a lot of people don't know
about it / don't understand how it affects them. Anything that helps more
people to start understanding and caring about this issue will push lawmakers
toward doing the right thing and curtailing it.

~~~
mhurron
> don't understand how it affects them

And this doesn't change that.

> helps more people to start understanding and caring

And this does nothing of the sort.

That's why it's useless. It is the very definition of slacktivism.

