Okay, so we’ve got the NSA spying-on-the-internet madness. Latest news from EFF’s Deeplinks blog is that so far three attempted investigations on this program have been fielded, and all have failed. The ACLU, meanwhile, has an article on how the NSA may’ve damaged its own ability to do its job by overreaching so badly. (And for extra fun, apparently a court ruled in 2011 that the NSA’s activities were illegal and unconstitutional, but that didn’t stop them.)
Methods to express your displeasure include
- EFF’s representative lookup: https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=9260
- “Halt Domestic Spying” on Change.org: http://www.change.org/petitions/nsa-halt-domestic-spying
- Generally register your disapproval of these shenanigans, on Change.org: http://www.change.org/petitions/us-government-and-the-nsa-wire-tapping-the-entire-us-population-for-no-reason-must-stop
- “File a class action lawsuit against the NSA” on Change.org: https://www.change.org/petitions/protect-our-privacy-file-class-action-lawsuit-against-the-nsa
- “Allow tech companies to publish PRISM data” on Change.org: http://www.change.org/petitions/eric-holder-allow-tech-companies-to-publish-nsa-prism-data
- Demand the cessation of of unconstitutional data harvesting, on Change.org: http://www.change.org/petitions/us-government-nsa-fbi-fisc-stop-the-unconstitutional-harvesting-of-private-data-2
(You don’t have to be an American citizen to sign these petitions.)
Oh, and since the NSA thing is falling through the floor, the Obama administration is considering backing a different initiative to give the FBI the authority to do more or less the same thing. Read about and protest THAT on EFF.org here: https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=9252
And then we’ve got CISPA. Now the thing about CISPA, if you’ll remember, is that it really actually kind of sucks at protecting the rights of ANYBODY. Mostly what it does is legitimize the government’s ability to get hold of data from tech corporations, and the ability of those corporations to turn that data over.
WELL GOSH, IT MAKES SO MUCH MORE SENSE NOW, DOESN’T IT. CISPA would in fact make it LEGAL for the government to go around collecting all the data they’ve been oh so shadily gathering up via the PRISM program.
Now, CISPA passed the House of Representatives in April, but is currently stalled in the Senate (hooray!). But that’s because the Senate seems to be inclined to try drafting its own version (boo).
In case the damn thing comes around again, here are links to help you lodge a protest:
- cispaisback.org lets you look up your Congresspeoples’ phone numbers to call them: http://www.cispaisback.org/
- EFF.org’s Action on CISPA site: https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=9048
Which brings us to SOPA 2013. The short version is that this is a trimmed-down version of SOPA which would, most relevantly, make it a FELONY to transmit any copyrighted material over the internet, including fanvids, covers of songs, podcasts, fanfiction and fanart. Have some links to more information:
- The Daily Kos article and a petition: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/21/1232836/-SOPA-Bad-ideas-never-really-die#
- The Washington Post, Aug. 5: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/05/sopa-died-in-2012-but-obama-administration-wants-to-revive-part-of-it/
And of course the protest links:
- “Stop SOPA 2013” at Whitehouse.gov: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/stop-sopa-2013/LMzMVrQF
- “Stop SOPA 2013” on Change.org: https://www.change.org/petitions/the-obama-administration-stop-sopa-2013
- Nothing on EFF as of yet, but check it out in a few days. I’m sure they’ll get to it.
And finally, as if all this heinous idiocy weren’t enough, we have the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Trans-Atlantic Trade Agreement (TAFTA). These are super-skeevy international treaties that have been negotiated with almost no government oversight (in fact, Congress and other bodies have repeatedly attempted to get access to information and have been denied), BUT with the full participation of many corporations and their representatives.
Amongst the many points of skeeve are such gems as the ability to force governments to comply on the issue of ‘illegal trade barriers,’ which can include things like food safety laws that a corporation deems oppressive to their ability to sell their wares in the desired market. Yes, they could force the FDA to lower food safety requirements. There’s also a lot of intellectual property skeeve in there, damaging to both US ability to share and create and that of other countries, which under the TPP could be forced to accept US copyright law WITHOUT the ‘fair use’ clause.
This one is particularly urgent, and you SERIOUSLY need to pay attention to it and climb all over your Congressional representatives because:
“Lawmakers in Congress are just about to introduce a bill to hand over their own constitutional authority to debate and modify trade law. It’s called Fast Track, or Trade Promotion Authority. It creates special rules that empower the White House to negotiate and sign trade agreements without Congressional oversight. Lawmakers won’t be able to analyze and change their provisions, and have only 90 days for an up or down, Yes or No vote to ratify the entire treaty. That means Internet and copyright provisions, buried in omnibus treaties, will get almost no oversight.” (EFF.org again)
What’s more, the people working to push this through (on the American side, i.e. the US Chamber of Commerce) are aware that it’s so heinous that they are explicitly and actively avoiding any media attention on it. Canada is pissed off about it. Japan is wary. Malaysia is less than happy.
So you can do the world a great service by complaining about it to everyone you know. And the links to protest THIS concentrated bottle of HELL NO:
And…that’s it. That’s all I could find. Because people just aren’t talking about this, and that is deeply worrisome.
