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Washington DC's Public Library Will Teach People How To Avoid the NSA
Jason Koebler writes Later this month, the Washington DC Public Library will teach residents how to use Tor as part of a 10 day series designed to shed light on government surveillance, transparency, and personal privacy. The series is called "Orwellian America," and it's quite subversive, considering that it's being held by a publicly funded entity mere minutes from a Congress and administration that allowed the NSA's surveillance programs to spin wildly out of control.
Hey, Bob, attend this class, make a list of attendees. Oh man, this is too easy!
Welcome to the TOR class. To register, we need your name, DOB, address, Social Security number, and a short essay on why you fear the government...
A lot of people don't realize librarians have always been on the forefront of protecting out rights.
From fighting for censorship, to advocating for free speech, to stuff like this ... librarians tend to be people with a real understanding of our liberties, and why it's important to have them.
So, if you enjoy the right to read a book which someone found offensive, of the ability to access stuff without having to pay the publisher, or free and anonymous access to the interwebs ... hug your local librarian.
They or someone like them has probably done as much to maintain your freedoms as anybody else in the last few decades.
Showing the public how to undermine the surveillance crap ... well, that deserves applause in my book.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Librarians have been fighting the good fight in America at least as far back as the 1940s when they stood up to red scare shenanigans. They were also at the forefront of fighting the PATRIOT act, both in lobbying and in action when they redesigned their lending software to delete all information once a book was returned. They are also at the center of the hackerspace movement.
It's depressing that it's necessary, but ...
Getting around a surveillance state which has declared itself to be legal and legitimate ... well, guess what, demanding your rights now is subversive.
When you have to hide from your own government because they have decided you have no actual right to privacy, your government is unjust.
That is now interpreted as "unless we say otherwise, and if you disagree you must side with the terrorists".
The supposedly "free" governments around the world now pretty much require that we be subversive, because they no longer recognize or give a damn about our rights. So it's pretty much the only thing left.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.