STOP CISPA
Now this is serious.
Please sign:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_cispa/?tta
https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=9048
and any other petition on the matter that you come across.
Everybody is encouraged to read more about what kind of surveillance and lack of privacy this bill entails.
People seem to not realize yet that virtual surveillance is not any different than the post office being legally obliged to let government officials read your mail, or mobile phone companies - record and share your private phone conversations. This is why laws like CISPA are being promoted so aggressively: this is a kind of surveillance the government can still get away with. This is also why people who put up a successful fight against limiting freedom on the web (e.g., Aaron Swartz) are prosecuted so brutally.
Here are some highlights of CISPA, in case anybody is curious.
CISPA will allow private sector firms to search personal and sensitive user data of ordinary U.S. residents to identify "threat information," which can then be shared with other opt-in firms and the U.S. government - without the need for a court-ordered warrant.
And despite numerous amendments and changes, there are no requirements that personal data, such as health records or banking information, should be anonymized before sharing it with the government.
The Bill will also amend the National Security Act to allow U.S. intelligence services to hand over classified information to entities and people that do not have security clearance. The idea is that this will be used in order to help companies fight back against and prevent cyberattacks on their systems in the future.
Most people don't (in practice) have much against fascism. People think that authorities should be able to monitor people's activities, and I haven't done anything wrong, or, I have nothing to hide. The problem begins when authorities start using such opportunities to bring people down. "We know there is something wrong with them, we just don't know what it is yet, but we will find out", is a slippery slope. People should be entitled to their privacy.
I have a friend who used to work for a company that specializes in fraud detection. In order to be able to verify online transactions quickly, they collected much information about frequent online shippers. They know what we read, what we tend to search for and shop for, all our different usernames in different sites and forums that we are members of, different email addresses that we use, and much more. All this information is publicly available (if you are smart enough, and somewhat technically skilled), but they conveniently have it in one place. When I expressed my concern, he said: but this is for a good cause! And I thought: it is only a matter of time before any tool becomes a weapon. Well, here it goes: if CISPA passes, the "good" cause will become "any cause". The company where my friend used to work will be legally obliged to share all information that it has collected with the government, and the government will be allowed to share it with other big companies. And so forth. Not to mention that google and facebook will be obliged to share our private online activity as well.
Last year CISPA passed in the Congress, but was vetoed by the President's office. An amended version passed in the Congress again last week. It is time that people who understand that virtual privacy is just as important as real-life privacy, take a stand on this.
Please sign:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_cispa/?tta
https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=9048
and any other petition on the matter that you come across.
Everybody is encouraged to read more about what kind of surveillance and lack of privacy this bill entails.
People seem to not realize yet that virtual surveillance is not any different than the post office being legally obliged to let government officials read your mail, or mobile phone companies - record and share your private phone conversations. This is why laws like CISPA are being promoted so aggressively: this is a kind of surveillance the government can still get away with. This is also why people who put up a successful fight against limiting freedom on the web (e.g., Aaron Swartz) are prosecuted so brutally.
Here are some highlights of CISPA, in case anybody is curious.
CISPA will allow private sector firms to search personal and sensitive user data of ordinary U.S. residents to identify "threat information," which can then be shared with other opt-in firms and the U.S. government - without the need for a court-ordered warrant.
And despite numerous amendments and changes, there are no requirements that personal data, such as health records or banking information, should be anonymized before sharing it with the government.
The Bill will also amend the National Security Act to allow U.S. intelligence services to hand over classified information to entities and people that do not have security clearance. The idea is that this will be used in order to help companies fight back against and prevent cyberattacks on their systems in the future.
Most people don't (in practice) have much against fascism. People think that authorities should be able to monitor people's activities, and I haven't done anything wrong, or, I have nothing to hide. The problem begins when authorities start using such opportunities to bring people down. "We know there is something wrong with them, we just don't know what it is yet, but we will find out", is a slippery slope. People should be entitled to their privacy.
I have a friend who used to work for a company that specializes in fraud detection. In order to be able to verify online transactions quickly, they collected much information about frequent online shippers. They know what we read, what we tend to search for and shop for, all our different usernames in different sites and forums that we are members of, different email addresses that we use, and much more. All this information is publicly available (if you are smart enough, and somewhat technically skilled), but they conveniently have it in one place. When I expressed my concern, he said: but this is for a good cause! And I thought: it is only a matter of time before any tool becomes a weapon. Well, here it goes: if CISPA passes, the "good" cause will become "any cause". The company where my friend used to work will be legally obliged to share all information that it has collected with the government, and the government will be allowed to share it with other big companies. And so forth. Not to mention that google and facebook will be obliged to share our private online activity as well.
Last year CISPA passed in the Congress, but was vetoed by the President's office. An amended version passed in the Congress again last week. It is time that people who understand that virtual privacy is just as important as real-life privacy, take a stand on this.