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Wired interview with Steinhardt
mlknowle writes "Wired has just posted a great interview with former EFF president and ACLU associate director Barry Steinhardt. In the interview, Steinhardt expresses concern that next year will be an even worse year for civil liberties. He does offer tips on what to do to help, however."
...unfortunately no one follows up. Really, how many Slashdot articles are posted here, and each time everyone says the same thing- "WRITE, fax, call you members, donate money, get other people involved, etc."?
And how many times do people follow through on this? We certainly have the power of numbers. If people would just practice what they preach, even in small amounts, we'd likely start to see things swing pretty well. The Skylarov rallies and press was good, and similar actions against RIAAssholes, but just one or two per year isn't good enough?
Seriously, how does the NRA do so well? They make sure people know they're still around at least once or twice per month. They flaunt it, without being holier-than-thou about it (most of the time.) And in numbers of greater than 50 at a time. If we can stop being anti-MS, and get to work, God only knows what we can do. The more public you are, the more people will start to see our side and work with us. And of course, the more MS will go after us (kinda like the NRA and anti-gun people..)
I'm not the best at practicing what I preach, but damnit, at least I do something. To those who already do too, great, keep it up. The rest of you who talk had best put some action behind those words, and the people who've stayed silent until now are certainly welcome to help out.
We don't need no Net Explorer We don't need no Thought control
I don't think you can reverse this sort of trend until people start acting like they give a damn -- the various opposition forces have way too much motivation. At best, the ACLU and EFF can only drag their feet while Ashcroft and the MPAA and Disney work to strip us of our rights.
You figure out how to make people give a damn, you let me know. The fact is that people are ignoring even the really outragous stuff, say, secret trials, indefinate detentions, eternal copyrights, limits to free expression, etc. Mindshare, I suppose -- that's what really, really matters.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Here's a patriotic article about the topic to counter this drivel. It was originally at the onion but it doesn't appear to be archived there.
Note for the sarcastically challenged: read the link.
Move on. There's nothing to see here.
Just after 9-11, when the Patriot Act bill sailed through congress despite glaring problems, I wrote a letter to Larry Combest, my representitive, detailing what I thought the problems were with the act and my general displeasure with the erosion of civil liberties in the name of war.
Now, the return letter was delayed until just a few days ago simply because congressmen couldn't use DC mail facilities because of the Anthrax scare (My letter was sent before the first anthrax case...), but in the form-letter reply, the congressman claims that he and his comrades are doing their best to balance civil liberties with the rigors of war.
This should tell us a few things:
Our congressmen have had the shit scared out of them. That a form letter directly addresses my complaints about the erosion of civil liberties means that I am one of many who has written in complaint. I live in a *very* conservative part of the country and Combest is a very typical representative of the luddite mindset around here. If he is admitting there is a problem, then you can bet that *every* congressman knows there is a problem wether he will admit it or not. They know that the people are upset and are making noise, and are in the process of trying to quiet that noise.
There is already massive distrust in Washington for George Bush and John Aschroft-- at least toward their war-time policies. If people who are concerned about their rights being taken away continue to hound their congressmen about it, the problems do have a good chance of being addressed rather than being ignored.
Remember that a lot of your congressmen are simply scared, afraid to go against the flow because of the reprecussions. If you show them (with massive amounts of mail) that you want positive change rather than negative change, it might strengthen their spirits a little.
The best part of this is that most congresspeople now prefer email to snail mail because there is no chance of contracting anthrax from Outlook. Of course they could always get Nimda, but I'll give my congressman the benifit of the doubt and assume he patches.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
has already worsened. The parliament enacted laws that allow police forces to arrest any person that may be related to terrorist activities without any legal mandate.
Three of my friends have already been arrested. One of them was caught with a bag full of flour and was accused of possessing Anthrax powder. He has been in jail since the beginning of december and I don't know when he will be released.
Both of the others were arrested because they wanted to organize a gathering in front of the Israel Embassie to protest against attacks in Palestine. Unfortunately, it seems that some people misunderstood them and they were accused of "Wanting to organize a riot". They have been in jail for 2 weeks and I don't know when I will hear from them.
So, situation in Canada is now dangerously worsening and I think that we must wake (In USA and Canada) and protest against this step toward dictatorship.
On one hand, American cultural mores dictate at least an appearance of privacy and security in one's person and one's papers. In many ways, Americans define themselves by the degree of privacy that they have been able to acquire.
On the other hand, we expect our government to protect us from attack and wrongful injury. We expect it to be proactive in discovering and analyzing any threats to its citizens, and become irate when it is unable to predict such a threat, even when such a prediction would have required violations of privacy.
On the gripping hand, though, analyses that would bear useful results in most times might not do so now. We are in the cusp of a sea change from a peacetime to a wartime footing. We look at war-based policy changes through a peace-shaped perspective.
There are a couple of old definitions that come to mind:
- Conservative: A liberal who has been mugged.
- Liberal: A conservative who has been arrested.
How would we now define a Post-9/11 American? How will our existing knowledge that we can be die anytime, anywhere—coupled with the new awareness that a small but significant fraction of the world's population is willing (and increasingly able) to do make that happen—affect our perception of civil rights issues? I would predict that a shift of equilibrium is occurring, and it'll take another couple of years before the new balance point is reached. It will be interesting then to look back on Your Rights Online posts from this period and see how drastically our own positions have been altered by time and events.Of course, some believe that the government sees the situation as simply an opportunity to curb civil rights (some even think they orchestrated the whole thing). Personally, I think most people just want as much information as they can get, that can possibly let them achieve their goals more effectively. That goes for everyone from DIRNSA to my network administrator. Heck, even the Slashdot editors can read the IP's of anonymous posters.
My theory is this:
- Privacy will continue to erode.
- The more we grouse about privacy, the more secretive the 'eroders' will be.
- The best we can hope for is a future where monitoring is directly observable, so surveillance will come at some cost to the perpetrator.
This must be a hot topic, as it's the second time today that I've commented on it, and I don't have that much free time today.