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If the EU regulation would explicitly say something is allowed, then local law cannot prohibit it (and the other way around).
But as far as I know this is not the case with respect to zero-rating or "fast lanes".

Without a doubt, the most interesting bit of the Dutch implementation is the explicit banning of zero rating, the practice where telecom operators do not charge end customers for data used by specific applications or internet services. In addition to that, the Minister of Economic Affairs must establish binding rules regarding traffic management in the case of impending network congestion and specialised services. He may also establish other rules explaining how the net neutrality regulation should be interpreted.

https://www.bof.nl/2016/05/25/...

ps, I'm a bit off on the usage of "regulation". An "EU directive" needs to be translated into local law (and thus though through the law construction procedure) and an "EU regulation" only needs to have some i's dotted and t's croess and activated (so still being activated as local law, but doesn't have to go through the classical law construction procedure).

Luckily the Dutch rules around neutrality are more strict. The Dutch also tried to push these same rules to be applied to the whole EU. But the corporate world convinced these "politicians" otherwise.

In the Netherlands "zero rating" is strictly prohibited: https://www.bof.nl/2016/05/25/...

It is not really a security flaw, it is a choice of design, and the extension showed what the consequences are -- namely that you can find out the habits and travels of a person, remotely.
This is similar to the mobile phone metadata, from which you can learn everything* about a person

Netherlands: https://www.bof.nl/2014/07/30/...
Germany: http://www.businessinsider.com...

*You put in some assumptions too, and being very confident about the conclusions of that person may have low validity, but that hasn't stopped the NSA.

As Bits of Freedom (a Dutch EDRi member) wrote last month.

p>Judge: Your client made these files accessible on the world-wide web?

Lawyer: Yes your honor.

Actually: no, your honor.

These pictures were planned for the december edition of Playboy, and apparently Sanoma, the publisher, does not like the fact that they are on the web and is trying hard to stop that. GeenStijl kept updating the links in their articles to new locations when Sanoma had Filefactory and Imageshack remove them, and they had been informed this was copyright infringing material. It is typical for their attitude.

In Dutch, when someone fucked you over badly you will typically describe their behaviour as "geen stijl", literally "no style". This website's attitude is that it's fun to be assholes.

To me this is an edge case. On a technical level a hyperlink certainly is not a publication of the linked item, but on the other hand persistently linking and relinking to material that you know to be infringing copyright certainly is behaviour that actively assists in spreading it. To me that comes a bit too close to pushing someone in front of a speeding car and blaming only the driver for the injuries to be quite comfortable with it. But the judge used different arguments. On first sight they don't seem to be unreasonable to me, but I can't oversee what side effects it may have. I'll be interested in what Bits of Freedom will have to say about this.

...while the parliament voted on this (in favor) already, the Senate ("Eerste Kamer") can still vote it down. Although chances are slim, the (indirectly elected) Senate in the Netherlands proved in the past that their view of the country is sometimes substantially different from that of the directly elected representatives. Officially the Senate can only regard the law against the constitution, but recent developments made the senate a more political institute. Because currently there are critical negotiations going on to keep the government in office, there is no saying what will be decided in that meeting room that affects ongoing legislation, including any Senate decisions. ( https://www.bof.nl/2012/03/05/stemming-eerste-kamer-telecommunicatiewet-uitgesteld/ in Dutch and https://www.bof.nl/2011/06/22/press-release-%E2%80%93-the-netherlands-first-country-in-europe-to-launch-net-neutrality/ on the original law in English)

...while the parliament voted on this (in favor) already, the Senate ("Eerste Kamer") can still vote it down. Although chances are slim, the (indirectly elected) Senate in the Netherlands proved in the past that their view of the country is sometimes substantially different from that of the directly elected representatives. Officially the Senate can only regard the law against the constitution, but recent developments made the senate a more political institute. Because currently there are critical negotiations going on to keep the government in office, there is no saying what will be decided in that meeting room that affects ongoing legislation, including any Senate decisions. ( https://www.bof.nl/2012/03/05/stemming-eerste-kamer-telecommunicatiewet-uitgesteld/ in Dutch and https://www.bof.nl/2011/06/22/press-release-%E2%80%93-the-netherlands-first-country-in-europe-to-launch-net-neutrality/ on the original law in English)

Additionally, I have canceled my xs4all subscription

Please don't. All that does is make sure they have less income for their appeal. It's not as if they blocked TPB voluntarily.

And if you really feel that way, then I expect you to keep contributing to Bits Of Freedom, as Xs4All does on your behalf (they donate €1,- per year for each of their customers).

I've kept all the alt.risk from 5-2000 to date. This is from Risks Digest 24.36

Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 22:20:30 +0200
From: removed
Subject: Voting machines in Ireland and The Netherlands

According to EDRIGRAM, the on-line newsletter of "European Digital Rights",
number 4.14:

On 4 July 2006, the Irish Commission on Electronic Voting released its
second report on the secrecy and accuracy of the e-voting system purchased
by the Irish Government.

The summary remarks at the beginning of the 200 page report say: "The
Commission concludes that it can recommend the voting and counting equipment
of the chosen system for use at elections in Ireland, subject to further
work it has also recommended, but that it is unable to recommend the
election management software for such use."

The "further work" includes, among others:
1) add a voter verified audit trail;
2) replace the election management software (which prepares election
      data, reads votes from "ballot modules", and calculates results) with a
      version that is developed to mission critical standards;
3) modify the embedded software within the voting machines to bring it
      up to mission critical standard;
4) make certain modifications to the machines themselves;
5) test all components to mission critical standard;
6) modify the specification for the PC that is to be used for vote management;
7) test the system as a whole (including end-to-end testing) to mission
      critical standard;
8) rectify the security vulnerabilities identified in the way data is
      transferred within the system.

This is quite a mouthful. In particular, the "mission critical standards"
may be quite difficult to achieve as a retrofit. The article speculates
that the responsible minister, who declares his intention to continue the
project, "may not realize the extent of the changes required". [Or is it a
polite way of saying "No thank you"? -EK]

Full article at http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.14/evotingireland
The article includes several links, including a link to the full report.

As far as I can make out from various sources, the voting machines in
question are essentially the same as the Nedap machines used in The
Netherlands for years. Little public criticism of these machines appears in
the general press.

But they do, indeed, have problems: According to the "Bits of Freedom"
newsletter:

In a local election, one candidate got 1, 3, 7, and 181 votes, respectively,
in the 4 polling stations where he was a candidate. The candidate not only
was en election official in the high-vote station, he operated the machine!

Peter Knoppers, according to the article an expert on voting machines, is
quoted saying that manipulation of the machine by a voting official is "a
piece of cake". For example, if a key is turned at the exact moment of the
vote being acknowledged by the voter, the vote will not be counted. The
missed votes can then be added manually at a later time, for any candidate
of your choice.

Full story (in Dutch) at
http://www.bof.nl/nieuwsbrief/nieuwsbrief_2006_14.html
This article also has several links, all in Dutch.

Don't make fast conclusions. We've had some pretty close calls with respect to internet filtering (see bits of freedom for more info).

Dutch hacker Rop Gonggrijp

Way to go, soundbite journalism!

Although he is a self-proclaimed hacker, he is more known for establishing the first ISP in The Netherlands. The ISP has characterized itself over the years as a high-quality service provider and an avid supporter of online freedom of speech (they supported one of their clients against Scientology). He is also an active supporter of Bits Of Freedom, our local version of the EFF.

1. Go to a random website hosted at one of these providers (or registered at GoDaddy).
2. Create hotmail account (or yahoo, or some other free untracable e-mail provider)
3. Send takedown request
4. Lather, rinse, repeat

For the extra bold, send paper letters.

If enough people did this, these providers would either get the hint and take these takedown requests with a grain of salt, or they would end up chasing enough of there customers that it would hit them in the balance sheet.

It's not even difficult to do, the BOFH paper provides form letters and other helpful hints on how to pull it off (i.e. follow up in case ISP responds), as well as a list of ISPs which are most vulnerable to this legal DOS.

So, if you're bored one rainy Sunday afternoon, you know what to do!

You get what you pay for with GoDaddy. I certainly wouldn't expect them to take my side in a dispute with MySpace, News Corp, or, frankly, anyone with a significant number of lawyers on their side.

Providers, by and large, will cave to any request from a big company...Hell there was an article about it here a few days ago, that linked the BoF Experiment where they posted a public domain work on 10 different places, and then sent DMCA takedown notices to all 10 places, and had 7 remove it immediately even though it was clearly marked as public domain.

Face it; a hosting site that will stick up for it's customers against a significant threat from a big company is hard as hell to find, and sure as hell GoDaddy isn't going to do it for 10 bucks a month.

Strong ties with Bits for Freedom (our version of the EFF), best Dutch ISP year after year, support for *nix systems, frequent new experimental services. Only pain is that they're also one of the more expensive ISP's. You get what you pay for, and with XS4ALL they give you the works.

(for the record, I'm a long-time customer so I am rather biased. But these guys aren't your average ISP)

I see no scoop there. Donner may be in favor of data retention, but the Houses of Parliament aren't, see e.g. the Bits of Freedom newsletter (sorry, Dutch only)

And they sued a dutch spammer into oblivion, tried to get cable providers to open up to other ISP's, held a conference on their 10th year on copyright issues, put some money into bits of freedom, have a large anonymous ftp server with goodies for all, provide IPv6 services... Lets just say they are on the good side. They do put letters from the Dutch RIAA through to their customers though. Anonymously, of course :)

This is not that strange, since they have sprung from a now defunct hacker magazine called hacktic. more information here

Well, I suggest you read this case regarding copyright.

because you used a computer to read my post, you did copy it as far as copyright law is concerned.

In case someone is interested, I was bored and translated the open letter. The [...] remarks are translation notes added by me. I did it pretty quickly so there are probably quite a few spelling and other mistakes. You have been warned.



To:

Prime-Minister Balkenende
Ministry of General Affairs
PO box 20001
2500 EA the Hague
fax 070-3564683

Minister De Graaf
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Kingdomsrelations
PO box 20011
2500 EA the Hague
fax 070-3639153

Minister Brinkhorst
Ministry of Economic Affairs
PO box 20101
2500 EC the Hague


Transcripts to:

Permanent commision for Economic Affairs
Second chamber of the States-General [Dutch Parliament]
PO box 20018
2500 EA the Hague
fax 070-3183439

Permanent commision for Internal Affairs and Kingdomsrelations
Second chamber of the States-General [Dutch Parliament]
PO box 20018
2500 EA the Hague
fax 070-3183444

Send by fax and lettermail.

Amsterdam, 10th of december 2004

Subject: state government[literaly the kingdoms' government in Dutch] contract with Microsoft

Very honored mister Balkenende, de Graaf, Brinkhorst,


The Automationguide of Friday 3rd of december reported that the state government and some muncipalities want to close an exclusive contract worth 147 milion Euro and a term of five years with Microsoft. In the realization thereof no public bidding took place.

Undersigned organisations are worried about this intention and want to make you aware of the negative effects that such a contract has on the software market and the climate of inovation in the Netherlands. Likewise such a contract is contrary to the by the Cabinet stipulated policy regarding the use of open standards and open source at the government level and the aspiration to make the government less depandant of a single software supplier. On top of this Microsoft has been convicted by the European Commision because of poor interoperability of its server software.

On the 20th of november 2002 the Second chamber spoke out unanimously for the motion [a proposal by the Parliament to the government] Vendrik in which the Government was asked to counteract concentrations in the software market, to make sure that in 2006 all sofware used by the public sector adheres to open standards and to "actively stimulate the spreading and development of software with open sourcecode (open source software) in the public sector and formulate concrete and ambitious goals for this".

The ministries of BZK [internal affairs] and EZ [economic affairs] have set up the programme Open Standards and Open Source Software (OSOSS) to stimulate government organizations in a wide sense to use open standards in their ICT-applications. Moreover the programme Purchasing Taskasignment (PIT) has set up a ICT-purchasestrategy for the state government in which the following starting points have been included: guaranteeing of interoperability and the avoidance and where necesary breaking of vendor lock-in.

Undersigned organizations are of the opinion that the closing of such a contract with Microsoft will to the locking of the door in the coming five years with regards to the application of open standards, free software and open source software. The now held contract negotiations are squarly oposed to the motion Vendrik and undermine the positive results of the OSOSS programme. On top of this the carefully formulated targets of the PIT are being bypassed.

Undersigned organizations call on the Cabinet to take in take in hand the usage of open standards, free software and open source software seriously and ambitiously. Meanwhile there are sufficient initiatives within the government that proof that such software kan offer many advantages on the areas of interoperability, security and costs.

In the opinion of the undersigned a contract of s

Sounds good but commissioner Bolkestein considered the US statements about data protection sufficient.
For this great feat he has just earned himself the Dutch Big Brother Award for 2004.
See Bits of Freedom .

The European Parliament has called on the European Court of Justice to declare the agreement null and void, a ruling by the Court can at the earliest be expected by next year.

Wasn't there a story the other week where US ISPs were giving away the details under the vaguest threat of a court order?

Off the top of my head, they did it with Google to try and force the owner of the non-US site xenu.net to counter-claim and defend in US court.

And Bits of freedom is an organization sponsored by X54A11.
Everybody is happy here.

ECHELON used to listen in to unencrypted satallite traffic and undersee cables. (Places you can listen without gething cought, it was designed against rusians and their friends remember). The point of the ukusa community is to intercept satallites the usa cant get.

I think it is unlikely that collection systems involved echelon have been extended to listen into more then what CALEA allows (telephone networks with the help of telephone companies). As even doing CALEA richt isn`t easy acording to the general acounting office I doubt it is integrated into echelon... but this is a tinfoil hat thread for a reason.

The thing is connecting sattalite traffic to people is easy, connecting IP traffic on a backbone to people is not that easy. So looking for voip traffic on a few backbone mostly going to outside the USA isn`t gonna do much good if you hava a warrant for a specific persons phone traffic.

The point of these laws is to make sure people cant avoid being listened into by police (with a warrant, easy to get and extend though) or by TLA`s (without anyone knowing, let alone a judge) by using skype or even cheaper VoIP systems. Sofar these systems fall outside CALEA. The goal is not to to tap into a suspects internet traffic just for the internet traffic. The biggest police snooping country in the world is probably the only country in the world that has a dedicated system forced on providers to tap into any IP traffic. Guess? guess again? its the Netherlands with 10.000 telephone taps a year (scoresheet, great round numbers).

Perhaps you are thinking of carnivore. Since "carnivore, the crappy sniffer for screwing up importand investigations without any regard for integrity of evidence or civil liberties" sound bad... Lets call it dcs2000 and solve this problem once and for all.

Also there's a famous beach-club who offers an option to implement RFID's under the skin to be able to pay at the bar and get faster entrance!!! That's a way to change the public opinion about RFID's...

Of course you're correct in this in theory. But nowadays a lot of laws are made on a more or less ad-hoc basis. Something happens, ie the WTC-bombing, and politicians throw up one or more new laws. What is criminal and what is not is not only decided by the politicians but also by the flood of media-attention something gets. There's talk about making cryptography illegal, so should we just adhere to that law? The governement in Orwell's 1984 had the same opinion, if you're not doing something illegal why would you mind? I mind knowing the governement (or someone else) is watching my every move. In Holland where I live the governement is talking about instituting a new intelligence agency which has the right to spy on people even if they're not suspects of a crime. Also the governement is going to pass a law which obliges ISP's to record all email- and surfingtrafic and store it for a year. If that's going to be the "democratic moral" then I'd rather be someone who resists the "society". Last (cheap shot on /. of course), what if linux is stated as "criminal" because it infringes on patents, shouldn't we use it anymore and hand over our life to ie microsoft? And I'm not wearing a tin-foil hat (yet), I'm carrying my cellphone with me day and night, so every step I make could be tracked if the governement wants to. Sometimes though I start wondering if I should put my cellphone someplace safe or just get rid of it. The direction the whole law-making process is going is scaring me more and more.

Europe has a lot more socialists who aren't fans of Big Business

I haven't read the reply you've received, of course. But I can guarantee you that GroenLinks is as firm an opponent of software patents as the SP is, if not more. Don't take my word for it, but read their press release as well as the voting comparison published by Bits of Freedom.

I haven't read the reply you've received, of course. But I can guarantee you that GroenLinks is as firm an opponent of software patents as the SP is, if not more. Don't take my word for it, but read their press release as well as the voting comparison published by Bits of Freedom.

BOF (Bits Of Freedom) has an document online [dutch] where they examined what our politicians voted on several "computer/internet related" laws, including software patents. (English version of BOF is here, but I couldn't find an english version of this document)

BOF (Bits Of Freedom) has an document online [dutch] where they examined what our politicians voted on several "computer/internet related" laws, including software patents. (English version of BOF is here, but I couldn't find an english version of this document)

BOF (Bits Of Freedom) has an document online [dutch] where they examined what our politicians voted on several "computer/internet related" laws, including software patents. (English version of BOF is here, but I couldn't find an english version of this document)

In the netherlands somewhere in the nineties law was developed forcing isp`s to make their networks tappable. The first plan was based on the idea that this would be just as easy as with previously goverment owned telephone compnies wich always cooparated with police investigations. Internet providers howevery are many *many* small buisnesses that operate on much tighter margins and are owned by an entire diffren kind of people. And the goverment wanted to listen in on all of them. This became a big conflict. The conflict even gave rise to a very small group of people that figured that in order to meet these requirements cheaply, scaleable and securely an opensource implementation of the goverment proposed protocols should be made. The site is still alive and contains a world of information on goverment imposed eavesdropping in all sorts of networks. (read the cyberpunks collection of standards and documentation, Or better yet get the more recent docs for free at etsi.org and the osi sites. Goverment acces is developed into standards nowadays which is ofcourse much cheaper then adding it when networks are up and running. This was demonstrated when german celluar phone users where billed for having their phones listened into ;-). This also includes some information on the biometric/rfid passport ideas that politicians think are a great idea becouse... you know terrorist and stuff, let pump millions in this and get on our way kissing babies and doing TV interviews okey?)

Currently, most big providers (I think mostly the ones owned by kpn including XS4ALL???) have machines in their network permanently to sniff traffic when a warrant arrives. This can`t be that hard, people keep saying the netherlands taps more phones then the US but real numbers that are reliable are very hard to come by (dutch link). These machines then tunnel the sniffed traffic to central collection machines. For this the "ITO" is peering with all major isp`s. The dutch internet service provider association has a couple of the sniffing machines provider can borrow if they dont have their own. I havent actually read the current version of these laws but in preivous version webhosters to should sniff traffic when asked to.

Ofcourse noone knows when this network is used, but it is safe to guess that the title of the first internet connection litened in to life by goverment snoops goes to the "hacking at large 2001" event (Lots of tents in a field, big network, lots of visitors and speakers on many topics and a big internet pipe). The then public traffic graph of the ASN of the goverment collection facility spiked really high during the days of that event ;-). I dont recal if it was this event or another one like it where people found out the police claimed to be dealing with "subversive anachist". When people found out about this T-shirts where sold with the text "staatsgevaarlijke anarchist", these where quite populair. OFcourse If this was the event the police was looking at then it would make sense that visitors where called dangerous, there needed to be a reasing for listening in.... what better reason then being anarchist-ish, terrorist-ish or terrorist-ish people releated, with a bit of pirate flavour to finish the mix.

Ofcourse, we can all look ahead at another fantastic episode in this series. Unlike other epic sagas (starwars) these episodes get not only bigger but also better and more exciting every time ;-) You see the European union has been buzzing with the idea of mandating the storage of traffic data of not only telephone providers but also internet providers (and hosters?) for years. But a new proposol for this idea has recently been introduced by Britan, France, Ireland and Sweden... Imagene being forced to store terrabytes of logs on 99.999999

How long before the feds make it a requirement (via some law similiar to PATRTIOT) to keep logs?

If you are in the EU, the answer would be, they started about two years ago. (List with the status of "traffic data retention" laws in european countries) Europenan police forces have been telling politicians for years that they want to see who has been talking to who online. Apparantly they dont see why they can`t, afterall they can with the telephone networks.

So now that a new plan for mandatory traffic data retention for all telecomunication providers (including isp`s, voip providers and perhaps webhosters)is in the works it is importand to make sure where your representitives stand on this issue. Especiallly when you vote for the European Parliament election on june 10.

Imagene that providers where forced to store terrabytes of logs. (with every URL requested + every mail, even small providers must reach terrabytes in a few months, now add p2p,im,usenet). They would have to do so for years at their own expense. They are unlikely to create strong protection to these logs from leaking or worse *altering*. This is ofcourse if a way can even be found to turn millions of individual packets into something meaningfull again (in real-time, reliable, without allowing for people to confuse these systems by adding a few whacky bytes, say weird protocol numbers or port numbers). Ofcourse it is only after traffic has been reconstructed that the traffic data can be separated from the "normal" data. Ofcourse it would be likely that if this ever where to heapon that big providers would pull it of in a somewhat reliable way. small ones might either mess up and be in trouble once a court order arrives or go bankrupt getting systems halfway worthy of collecting evidence. But then these logging systems are not anywhere near reliable enough to end up with data trustworthy enough to be used in court. Do people/judges understand that? or do at least laywers understand this? Not likely for about a year, then people would learn that these systems can be fooled and are beeing fooled by the people they are supposed to target (terrorists, organised crime, political activists). Now providers were forced to pay for systems that are essentially useless becouse everyone knows how to beat them.

The fact this scheme is unfeasible which may sound like a good thing. But imagene what we end up with if all providers where to botch together a cheap and easy system without any security for logging their traffic? You might end up explaining to a judge that logs claiming you have been mailing UBL at hotmail.com are just files that suggest that either at some point traffic with an apparant e-mail containing that addres and some addres somehow associated with a computer or mail addres somewhat related to you flowed through their systems or that someone at your isp has pulled a prank on you and opened the logs and added some entries.

This discusion just brings up *another* interesting argument against these plans: Do we want every cop in the EU (data should be shared under this proposal) to have acces to the e-mailing and browsing contacts of docters, laywers, journalists, politicians and even priests?

As to the situation in the Netherlands, a lot can be found on the site of Bits of Freedom. Unfortunately, most of it is in Dutch (very simple english version). I don't remember any significant attention from the international media to this, but if you are really interested, I think delving through the archives of The Register might turn up one or two interesting articles.

As to the situation in the Netherlands, a lot can be found on the site of Bits of Freedom. Unfortunately, most of it is in Dutch (very simple english version). I don't remember any significant attention from the international media to this, but if you are really interested, I think delving through the archives of The Register might turn up one or two interesting articles.

Actually, estimates of dutch tapping figures have said to have surpassed the official figures released by the US goverment. No wonder people have been looking to get the dutch official figures, no luck so far, its claimed no grand totals excist for the modern day digital tapping system.

Ofcourse these numbers are only about telephones, in radio and satalite communications the US might be the biggest player in the echelon coallition. Here it doesn`t mather much how big a player is becouse the goal of the coalition is to trade catured data and other inteligence. Question is what intelligence do other countries have that the USA can`t get though its sigint sattalites? Sattalite communication comes to mind as that travels through radio closely directed at either the sat or the ground station making snooping only possible for groundstations or sats with big dishes nearby the intended destination. This means dishes located on non US soil, the biggest reason for the coalition. Not many other countries opperate enough sattalites to get their data from over the horizon, so tapped phones and planted microphones comes to mind as being the only change of other goverments when it comes to trading with the US in the echelon community. If you think that that what the US captures ones is traded with many countries the world over for many other intersting bits you would think the US would be be winner of the biggest total goverment snooping award. But its hard to get an idea on how much the US shares its intelligence. Looking at the arrest worldwide after september 11 shows that many goverments eager to trail people on the basis of secret intelligence may not have had the "evidence" they where willing to use. This might mean that after sept. 11 the US supplied it, now why wouldn`t germany for example have acces to US intel on mulim fundamentalists? Asuming the US is capable of splitting the captured raw data into stuff interesting for national economic reasons (Which obiously should not be shared) and stuff that is mainly usefull when shared, it may not *want* to do so if it doesn`t get back enough becouse if small countries getting to much quality processed US intel easy they could trade it with others who could be of help to the US (Big dishes in the right places or say acces to the local pakistani embasies crypto room). But unlike law enforcement telephone tapping, this snooping is mostly done by organisation with roots in the militairy meaning that they are really secretive and not open for public review.

Really. Quite entertaining. Wish /.'s interviews were like this.

Anyhow. His view on the current laws on cyberterrorism is exactly my view (i'm contributing to BoF (Bits of Freedom) a dutch "EFF" if you want).

It frightens me that the US government is taking these steps and stands. The country which used to be known for his freedom is slowly turning into a country like Irak itself. Controlling it's own people. It would not surprise me if even the American press is being controlled. I used to dream of leavin my own country and live in the USA. That dream has been destroyed over the last couple of years when it became clear that what constitutes freedom in my mind did not have the same meaning in the USA.

I'm so disappointed in my countrymen.

This is a pretty harsh remark but i guess it's right on the mark for most of the people i know who live in the US. They all share the feeling that their countrymen look deliberately the other way because they are afraid that if they speak up they would be branded anti-patriotic. The worst part of it is that they too look the other way. They refuse too admit it but whenever i want to discuss the TIA they just response with the phrase "It's for the protection of us all" and that's it.

I hope that the EFF can create enough momentum to turn the tide. Otherwise we are facing a grim future.