Slashdot Mirror
Preserve Your Rights Online - Act Now
Let's start with one simple and rather sad truth: You are going to be less free next week than you were last week.
We are already seeing what several newspapers have called "the biggest criminal investigation in history." Sure, a lot of this investigation's energy is being focused on Islamic countries, but it is also going on in Europe and, more than anywhere else, the United States itself. Landlords who have rented to young men with Arab-sounding names are being interrogated. Topless-bar patrons are being asked about conversations they allegedly heard, boasting about upcoming mass destruction.
And then there's email and the World Wide Web. Imagine a technically unhip Senator or Member of Congress who has read about Osama bin Laden allegedly using encrypted email and secret messages hidden in online porn to communicate with his followers and allies. Put the words "Osama bin Laden" in the same sentence as "pornography" and "the Internet," and you had better get out of the way of the avalanche of anti-online privacy laws coming your way -- or get crushed by them, even if people like bin Laden can switch to other means of communication at the drop of a hat.
Worse, disagreeing with the U.S. government right now may almost be viewed as treason in some quarters. "My Country, Right or Wrong" was a popular bumper sticker among the gunrack-and-confederate-flag pickup truck crowd in the late 60s, and this attitude, if not yet the bumper sticker itself, has been making a major comeback
But Dissent We Must
The problem with the "My Country, Right or Wrong" attitude is that it allows our government to go terribly wrong in many ways that may not be made right again for a long time, if ever. As Rep. Rivers pointed out Saturday, once laws are made that are supposed to help law enforcement in some way, they are almost never repealed because Members of Congress don't want to be seen as "soft on terrorism, soft on crime, soft on drugs."
Carry this a little farther. What about treason charges? At what point does it become illegal to speak out against a planned US government action that, on its face, is being taken to fight against the Terrorist Enemy, whoever he or she may be, even though that action may have very bad, long-term consequences for ordinary American citizens who want nothing more that to live their own lives quietly without being afraid of their own government?
Rep. Rivers said half the people in her district's gut reaction to the idea of legislation allowing government to read their email without getting a warrant first was along the lines of, "So what? I don't break any laws, so I have nothing to hide."
Long-time EPIC activist Kathleen Ellis told Rep. Rivers she believed questions about privacy should not be asked in the context of email. "Ask people if they should have the right to keep a secret and almost all of them will answer 'Of course,'" she said. Ellis also mentioned that cryptography is the email equivalent of an envelope on a letter sent by postal mail. "Unencrypted email is like a postcard," she said, "open for anyone to read. Ask people if they want all mail to be as open as a postcard and they're going to say no."
From that point on, the meeting focused on tactics. The question in the room wasn't, "Are privacy and freedom of speech good?" but "What can we do to protect our privacy and freedom of speech?"
Background on the Meeting Itself
The forum in which all this discussion took place was decidedly unofficial. It was an informal meeting thrown together hastily by local Linux user and ham radio afficianado Rob Carlson. Carlson sent a meeting notice to several email lists and posted it at cluebot.com. 13 people showed up at Saturday's gathering, most of whom were Baltimore and Washington D.C. area privacy advocates and/or Linux users. I was there myself for that reason. Wired News reporter Declan McCullagh is another "local" who hangs in the same circles, which explained his presence.
Rep. Rivers was there because her husband, William Simpson, is a computer consultant involved with the Internet Engineering Task Force [IETF] who spotted Carlson's notice on one of the cryptography-oriented email lists he's on. He had driven Rivers' chief of staff, who needed to get back to Washington but was marooned in Michigan by the airlines shutdown, to D.C., and was taking his Congresswoman wife back to her district for a little rest and some scheduled meetings (Congress had adjourned until Friday, Sept. 21), and they noticed that UMBC was on their way. So there they were, not dressed in "mover and shaker" clothing but looking like anyone else taking a 1000+ mile car trip.
One doesn't usually think of a Member of Congress fitting in with a group of downdressed geeks, but this one sure did. We only knew what she did for a living because Carlson asked everyone in the little circle to identify themselves by name and job, and when it was her turn Rep. Rivers gave her name as "Lynn," then added "Rivers," and softly, sort of as an aside, mentioned that she was "in Congress." Her husband had already mentioned that they were "from Michigan," which was curious enough in itself for a meeting with a decidedly local orientation. But Linux folks are friendly, and Rep. Rivers was as welcome as anyone else even though she was from out of town -- and freely admitted she used Mac OS, not Linux, both at home and in her office.
When he organized the meeting, Carlson said, "I didn't know whether no one or 100 people would show up." 13 did. And revolutions have started with as few as 13 people, so why shouldn't a strong pro-Constitution lobbying movement? The next step is to get 13 more, and another 13, and so on. This means calling and emailing friends until there are 13X13X13X13.... people talking to their elected representatives about privacy issues in terms they can understand, that will help them change their minds.
How You Can Lobby Against Anti-Privacy Laws
Start with this line Rep. Rivers laid on us, which is not new but needs to be said over and over: "Democracy is not a spectator sport."
Those Americans who don't vote, no matter how they excuse this failure, have no right to criticize their government. And those who don't bother to tell their elected representatives what they want and don't want their government to do should not act shocked when the government passes laws they don't like. It gets sickening, going to hearing after hearing about proposed laws like UCITA, DMCA, and SSSCA and always seeing a whole bunch of industry lobbyists wearing expensive suits, but hardly ever anyone who could be classified as an "ordinary citizen."
You need to make some noise instead of letting "them" talk while you sit around and let "them" get their way. Pump up the volume. Take some of the time you spend posting on Slashdot and register to vote. Write email and snail mail letters, send faxes, and make phone calls to Congresspeople and Senators and other representatives, and tell other people (13X13X13X13.... voices, remember) to do the same. This, not just complaining, is what this whole representative government thing is all about.
Rep. Rivers says phone calls "...have a sense of personal contact to them," and this makes them the most effective grassroots lobbying tool. "Stick to one issue," she advises. "Don't come up with a laundry list."
Also send email and write letters, even though they probably won't have as much impact as calls. And don't forget the fax machine; reps who are too technically unhip to read email read faxes. The ACLU and NRA have both famously used fax as a means of rapid communication with legislators for many years.
Now comes the matter of what to say. A letter, call or email that starts with something like, "I has nevir voted for you I am not registered to vote but you got to lisen to me," will go nowhere, says Rivers, pointing out that many pro-Napster messages she got were along those lines -- and got ignored. Better, she says, is something that tells your representative you are a computer professional (or manager or student or business owner or whatever) whose business, occupation or future will be hurt by whatever legislation you are working against. In this case (this week), privacy and online crypto are under attack. Next week, who knows?
So you're not a business owner? Know any? Know anyone who depends on privacy to transact their business? How about your doctor? Doesn't he or she want to keep patient records confidential? Ditto any lawyer you know. If a lawyer is serious about maintaining client trust, he or she certainly doesn't want the government snooping on email through Carnivore or a similar system with a less aggressive name. Other businesses have client information they want to private, along with trade secrets and other information they would rather not share with competitors. These are all points to bring up rationally, in an orderly debate format, when communicating with an elected rep, and they are ones you should ask others to bring up, too.
Stay calm, in other words. Assume your representative is sane and really wants to do what's right and what most people want, based on the input he or she gets. Your trick is to become part of that input, and right now the input you need to give must be strong and focused because Congress is caught up in post-attack hysteria and, like the rest of us, is saying, "We need to do something to help those poor victims and their families and make sure nothing this awful ever happens again."
The only problem here is that what Congress does is make laws, not post on Slashdot, and a law made in the same emotional heat as a flame post on Slashdot can't be moderated down to -1 after it is passed. Once that law is on the books, if you break it you can be arrested, tried, and fined or sent to jail. You've heard the saying, "If [guns/crypto/brains] are outlawed, only outlaws will have [guns/crypto/brains]." It's true, you know.
Right now, legitimate Americans are in danger of having many of their Constitutional freedoms revoked by a government that is doing its best, possibly in a misguided way, to protect its citizens. This is not about Disney's copyrights or the freedom to play DVDs on computers running Linux. The current debate is about much more basic issues than those, issues I will not repeat here because they have been written about so extensively elsewhere.
An Aside: How Congress Works
Rep. Rivers said it this way: "The House [of Representatives] is ruled by brute force."
Since she was talking to geeks who follow such things, she used the DMCA as an example. She told us that the "unanimous" vote that got DMCA through the House was not really unanimous at all; that the bill got through a committee dominated by a powerful chairman (which is how bills generally get to the floor for a vote) and that the Speaker called for a voice vote. "Most yelled 'Aye,'" Rivers said, and some yelled 'Nay.'"
The voices yelling "Aye" were the loudest, so DMCA passed by acclamation. Brute Force. People yelling at the top of their lungs. If 50 loud voices had yelled "Nay" instead of "Aye," perhaps we wouldn't have the DMCA as law today, and the EFF wouldn't be begging for money to get it overturned in the courts.
Now think about a Member of Congress who is hearing, right now, from all the "Kill-the-Arab-bastards-and-stamp-out-Internet-porn" crowd loudly and repeatedly by phone, fax, mail and email, but isn't hearing from you. Who is shouting the loudest? Which wheel is so squeaky that it is going to get the grease? So far, it's not the voices of reason and Constitutionality. They are getting drowned out. Heck, they are hardly there at all. At least Rep. Rivers isn't hearing them, and if she isn't hearing them -- with her ear attuned to Internet privacy matters and a totally Net-hip husband at her side -- you can bet the rest of Congress don't even know those voices (yours) exist.
Don't Delay! Do It Today!
Congress reconvenes Friday, September 21. The anti-privacy bills and anti-privacy amendments to various anti-terrorist bills are being written now, not someday. This means you must act immediately. If you put off those calls and emails to friends asking them to help support their right to communicate with each other in private, and to live without fear of police breaking down their doors or seizing their computer hard drives without warrants for even a few days, it is going to be too late. We are in the grip of national hysteria. A $40 billion appropriations bill to support the war on terrorism was passed a few days ago, with bipartisan support, almost without debate.
I'm going to admit that I am as ready to kick terrorist butt as anyone else, so I can't really blame Congress for being so gung-ho that it will pass all kinds of measures that will make America a less free country for decades to come in response to the current emergency. All I'm really asking Congress to do -- and asking you to join me in asking Congress to do, and to convince 13X13X13.... others to ask your Representative and your Senator to do -- is remember that the freedoms that make this country great must not be forgotten in our rush to avenge our fallen fellow Americans and our attempts to keep ourselves safe from future terrorist attacks.
Specifically (concentrate on one issue, remember), as a Net user I am concerned about watching our online privacy and freedoms evaporate if the government makes strong cryptography illegal or tries to have it controlled by agencies like the NSA, CIA, and FBI, or starts reading all of our private email without due cause and legitimate judicial warrants.
The deadline is Friday. That's when the legislative fur will start to fly. So let's get to work now!
It's been said many times that legislators don't read their email, and when they do, they largely ignore it. This isn't always the case...
A few weeks ago (probably closer to a month, I don't remember) I dashed off a note to US Rep. Sander M. Levin, 12th District, Michigan. My note concerned Dmitry Sklyarov, and his imprisonment for presenting some research which should've been protected speech. I ranted as intelligently as I could about the DMCA and how it hurt all of us. I clicked the Submit button and promptly forgot all about it.
A few days ago, I went through my snailmail inbox. I don't do this very often, so I have no idea how long Rep. Levin's letter had been sitting there. In any case, the letter indicates a clear understanding of the Sklyarov case and at least a few of the issues surrounding it. The letter ends "I will continue to follow this case closely. Thank you again for contacting me on this matter. Sincerely, [signature and closing] SML:ch"
Neat. My understanding of the SML:ch part would seem to suggest that while someone else typed it, this letter was at least personally dictated or composed in part by Rep. Levin himself. Form letter? Possibly. But the existence of such a form letter would indicate the demand for one, which means he must be hearing about this issue a lot.
WRITE YOUR REPRESENTATIVES! They DO listen. They even understand sometimes, and it's your job to help them. My task this evening, after the daylight fades and cleaning my car becomes moot, is to fill Rep. Levin in on some of the subtler details of Sklyarov's case, and point out exactly why we all need to oppose Carnivore. Making it clear why such opposition is justified, even in times of crisis, will be the tough part. Wish me luck, then try your own hand at it. Please?
-Myself-
Voter, Concerned Citizen
12th District, Michigan.
sting3r, if you are sooo disgusted, why the hell are you here complaining? You're no better than the folks who constantly bitch about Katz yet continually return to read his stories.
Privacy and civil liberties are incredible important to a citizenry that wishes to remain free. The ability of US citizens to openly criticize their elected government is a Right that should not be tossed aside because of a tragedy, no matter the magnitude.
Did you read the news summary? The DMCA passed with a friggin VOICE VOTE. That alone should send chills down you spine. It does mine, and I don't even live there!
Oh, and in case you hadn't noticed, the people who DID this are dead. The USA can only hope to go after their associates and comrades.
Did you expect the world to come to a halt?
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Not only was decision upheld, the legal precident is still on the books. This precident states that the government may bypass the 5th and 14th amendments out of military necessity. Once those are bypassed, freedom of speech doesn't matter because no one will hear you.
This isn't a First Amendment issue. Just because the government might be listening in shouldn't prevent you from speaking freely.
Exactly. If you vote, it means you accept the game and will abide by the results. You took part in the supposedly democratic process and lost fairly (although 'fairly' doesn't really apply to this last election). It seems like you have LESS of a right to complain if you voted, because you implicitly acknowledged the fairness of the result.
New York (and New Jersey, D.C., etc.) congressmen are probably bogged down with an incredible amount of correspondence concerning the incidents, and to me it seems like there is a high chance that a message about preserving your rights in America will get lost within the massive bulk of other correspondences.
Contacting my members of Congress -- getting them to read or hear my thoughts -- is next to impossible to do by Friday the 21st. They're too understandably busy right now. This does not mean I will not write them: I will.
So my question is this: what else can I do? Since contacting my representatives will not do as much as if I were a registered voter in Michigan, what other organizations or people should I try and contact? Is the EFF collecting donations to lobby for exactly this cause? Is someone else?
I've got a hectic week (my office is five blocks north of the Trade Center) and tons to deal with. Who can I talk to that will be able to listen, if only for a minute?
---
"Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller
Only one lawmaker voted against giving the executive of this country broad, sweeping exemptions to following the rules laid out by our Constitution, and that's Barbara Lee. I may not agree with everything she does, but I am glad she is my rep in the house. And, no, she didn't vote against it because of some weird plot or whatever, she just simply refused to hand the reigns of power over to anyone without knowing who that power is being used against. That's the responsibility of Congress, and she stood up and accepted that in the face of the tyranny of the majority. Right now, because of the way the vote went, the US president basically can do whatever he wants to whoever he says is bad, and that is very not good.
I have no problem with finding and whacking whoever did this, but nobody needs to be crowned king in order to do so. We don't need to "go to war" over what is essentially an international law enforcement issue. We may need to go to war when we find whoever it is who was responsible, but not before.
What really pisses me off, and this is from the standpoint of a veteran that has lost friends due to assassinations and bombings, and having narrowly avoided being shot or blown up myself, is that we have all of these people waving flags and howling for blood.
FINE, IF YOU ARE UNDER 35, GO SIGN UP WITH THE ARMED FORCES AND GET SOME!!! IF YOU ARE TOO OLD OR DECREIPT, TAKE YOUR UNDER 35 KIDS DOWN TO THE RECRUITER AND SIGN THEM UP, AND GET SOME!!!!
Nothing strikes me as a greater act of cowardice than to expect OTHER people to do your killing for you, having them take all of the risks (depleted uranium, nerve agents, hell, just plain getting shot), while the person howling sits safely somewhere waving a flag while SOMEONE ELSE'S KIDS GO GET KILLED. You want blood? Fine, you back it up personally.
'Hail Eris, baby, hail Eris...pfffffffttt.' *cough* 'Yeah.'
Another point to make is that it simply will not work. You can argue about trading liberty for security, but in this case, you are trading liberty for insecurity.
Congress is talking about putting back doors into cryptography schemes. There is a good Second Amendment argument against this, but some congressmen just don't care about it. So show how it will fail.
First off, we must remember that we are dealing with truly elite terrorists here, not the 31337 ones we have been used to. The attack we just sustained was a work of twisted, despicable genius. Such people will break this law without a thought. If they can't get somebody to sell them crypto without a backdoor, they'll just get it off a
If there is a back door, this means that the government has a key that would break a given encryption scheme. That's way too many eggs in one basket.
Do you know what that key would fetch on the black market? Do you know what people would do to get it?
Like people in any walk of life, there are law enforcement agents and police officers with crime in their hearts. And one dirty cop with access to a key could make millions selling it.
Even if not, remember a few years ago, distributed crypto key cracking. Someone would encrypt a message using a crypto scheme, and hold a contest to see who could crack it first (thus, this was a "white hat" exercise). So people came up with programs that everybody could run on their computers, so that they had thousands of computers trying bazillions of keys until they got something that worked.
If the Fed required back doors, and I was a cybercriminal that wanted to crack it (perhaps to steal credit card data from online transactions...), I would build a distributed cracker, and marry it to a virus or worm. Infect millions of machines and have them busily cracking the Master Key for me.
Let me suggest that we also brainstorm here for useful laws that Congress could pass. I think that when an event like this occurs, there is tremendous political pressure to do something. Passing laws that won't help the situation, may even hurt the situation, but look like they help will be popular with voters. And if a lone voice turns and says "I won't vote for this because it won't work," they're not likely to get re-elected.
--The basis of all love is respect
Maybe music is a minor issue compared to everything else, but it's happening none theless, Clear Channel, one of the largest radio networks in the world, has issued a list of 150 songs that would be "inappropriate" for airing. I looked at this list, expecting to see a bunch of marilyn manson(suprisingly none were listed) and other death/metal the like. While there was some, there were also inexplicably a lot of songs that were simply put on the list solely based on their song titles. It seemed they just listed the songs simply because they had the words "War", "blood", or "destroys" in the titles. It listed songs that were anti-war("war pigs", "sunday bloody sunday"). Some of these songs actually helped me get through that horrible tuesday(particularly songs like "under the bridge" and "black hole sun"), and now Clear Channel thinks the songs are "inappropriate"? Maybe I am overreacting. I hope I am.
Got Freedom?
Thinking?