
Rally Against Mass Surveillance Livestream [video] - thomasfromcdnjs
https://rally.stopwatching.us
======
ta223
Let's see who's watching us on stopwatching.us:

    
    
      dig MX stopwatching.us | grep -c google.com
      >>> 6
    
      curl https://rally.stopwatching.us/ |grep -c 'google.*\.com'
      >>> 6
    
      curl https://rally.stopwatching.us/ |grep -c facebook.com
      >>> 1
    
      curl https://rally.stopwatching.us/ |grep -c youtube.com
      >>> 0
      curl https://rally.stopwatching.us/ |grep -c youtube-nocookie.com
      >>> 1
      hey, at least someone /thought/ about it
    
      curl https://rally.stopwatching.us/ |grep -c typekit.net
      >>> 1
    
      curl https://rally.stopwatching.us/ |grep -c twitter.com
      >>> 5
    
      curl https://rally.stopwatching.us/ |grep -c cloudflare.com
      >>> 3
    

The list goes on...

EDIT: I should note that these could be harmless <a...> links, but most
aren't, and I'm too lazy to update the regexes and rerun. You get the point
though.

~~~
frank_boyd
Seriously.

Why does every website come with 10thousand f#cking scripts loaded in the
background? I hate this. Host your own goddamn js, fonts and whatnot.

~~~
ryanSrich
Most arguments for CDNs are based in speed. The only one from that list that
would make sense to host yourself would be the video from YouTube.

~~~
ta223
Quite the opposite. The video -- because it's huge compared to JS, CSS, etc.
-- /does/ make sense to host on YouTube. The /player/ does not belong embedded
in the page though. Take a screenshot, host that on your own crummy web
server, and link to YouTube, ideally with a notice to the effect of "Clicking
this link will share your information with YouTube..."

------
kefs
I'm ecstatic for the awareness this rally brings, but I just find it odd that
the site itself has plenty of tracking beacons which directly report visits
back to companies complicit in what they're protesting against.

[http://i.imgur.com/SePrtYk.png](http://i.imgur.com/SePrtYk.png)

The tracking beacons on all the sponsor companies' sites also confuse me.

~~~
eternalban
Chairman Meow was the first to figure this out:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign)

~~~
judk
Chairman Meow is someone else

[http://www.vivachairmanmeow.com/](http://www.vivachairmanmeow.com/)

------
sinak
Really proud to be a part of this.

Also, a group of HN users (taskforce.is) built the StopWatching website. Big
shoutout to Thomas Davis and Beau Gunderson for a load of hard work on the
site.

~~~
sinak
Better quality livestream on C-SPAN: [http://www.c-span.org/Events/Group-
Holds-Rally-Against-Mass-...](http://www.c-span.org/Events/Group-Holds-Rally-
Against-Mass-Surveillance/10737442319-1/)

------
elwell
My non-trolling question is: why should I care about suspicionless
surveillance? I really want to have a solid list of reasons (preferably in
single sentences to force clarity). So far, in this debate, I haven't been
bothered at all by the surveillance discoveries.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
If you want a single sentence, I've heard a quote recently (I'm not sure of
the source), but here it is:

If knowledge is power then the corollary is necessarily that privacy is
freedom.

We can unpack that some, because it turns out that it's supported by evidence.
Studies have shown that people who know they are under surveillance change
their behavior. They don't challenge the status quo or participate in creative
destruction because they fear being punished for it.

In general, mass surveillance is a tool for the few to control the many. It
allows government officials to destroy popular movements by detecting and
disrupting them early in their evolution before they gain enough political
power to stand on their own. Governments engaging in this sort of political
espionage is a historical fact.

Take the analogy of the federal government issuing every member of the NYPD a
Humvee and a machine gun, in case they have to fight Taliban insurgents on the
streets of New York. Doing so is hugely objectionable, not because we like the
Taliban, but because the number of Taliban in New York is small and the number
of innocent civilians is large, so the innocent civilians become by far the
largest category of individuals who end up eating one of those bullets.

That's the problem with mass surveillance. Government surveillance is a tool
of destruction. The reason the NSA is engaged in this surveillance isn't so
that they can send you a reminder when you forget to pick up your kid from
soccer practice, it's so that they know where to send soldiers to destroy the
enemy. But when 99.99% of the people under surveillance are upstanding
citizens, what you have is a powerful weapon which we leave sitting around
idle just waiting for corruption to take root and redefine who the enemy is.

------
jasonkolb
I would like to salute the people who are willingly putting themselves on all
kinds of lists by being here. I would be there as well if it were practical
for me.

------
MisterWebz
So how's the turnout? Couldn't really figure it out from the livestream.

~~~
sinak
We don't have an official estimate yet, but our guesses are between 2,500 on
the low side and 4,000 on the high.

------
tshile
I'm glad there is public awareness and debate on the issue, but I find it
troubling that there is severe lack of contribution to the debate (can we even
call it that at this point?) from the NSA's part. I think it's in error to
assume that there is nothing positive the NSA gets from this in terms of
protecting the country, or maybe more specifically that the NSA has a vested
interest in knowing the mundane details of the average citizen's life.

I'm as curious as the next person about how what they do is constitutional
under the 4th amendment. I'm as against the idea of a police state, and am
concerned about the direction of this country in a post-9/11 world as those at
the protest. But there's two sides to every issue (often more), and on this
one all we get is a bunch of awful PR that has to be walked back. I don't
think it's a 100% useless and/or nefarious operation.

Is there nothing positive the NSA/US Government can tell us about these
tactics that wont compromise their mission?

~~~
candydance
>Is there nothing positive the NSA/US Government can tell us about these
tactics that wont compromise their mission?

They probably think that they can just stay silent and the public outrage will
quietly sizzle out.

It's certainly looking like that stance will be justified.

------
pinaceae
a live video stream, global, for a demo against being watched.

i am posting my entire life on the internet for anyone to see, how dare you
look at me.

------
mtgx
I like the logo of the t-shirts.

------
nhaehnle
Some food for thought about who is organizing this rally:
[http://www.salon.com/2013/10/21/dont_ally_with_libertarians_...](http://www.salon.com/2013/10/21/dont_ally_with_libertarians_ideologues_co_opt_an_anti_nsa_rally/)

It's a difficult topic, of course. Opponents of libertarians are quick to
point out that the libertarian agenda leads into quite the dystopia. In
particular, on the topic of surveillance, it seems fairly clear that at least
the hardcore libertarians (in the direction of anarcho-capitalists and the
like) are actually _happy_ with surveillance - as long as it is done by
private companies and not by the state.

Now these groups are co-opting or even running this campaign which is
ostensibly against mass surveillance. That seems something right out of the
libertarian propaganda playbook (for a recent collection of quotes out of this
playbook, see here: [https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/lying-to-
liberals/](https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/lying-to-liberals/)).

On the other hand, protesting mass surveillance is still a worthy cause. I am
not a USian myself, and I can't really tell where I would land on this issue
(support stopwatching.us or not) if I were, but it's an important issue to
think about.

~~~
jasonkolb
What we really need is a political movement based only on a very few things
that we can all agree on. Leave economics, morals, guns, abortion, and
everything else completely out of the story and focus on one or two core
issues. Like upholding and strengthening the Bill of Rights.

~~~
lkbm
Guns are clearly part of the Bill of Rights, and the SC had ruled the same of
abortion.

