Take back our internet freedom!

*This article is a somewhat shorter version of an article from the Libertarian Party's website.

A coalition of thousands of Internet users, companies and organizations launched a campaign for a day of action to "Reset The Net" on June 5, 2014, the anniversary of the first NSA surveillance story revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden. Tens of thousands of internet activists, companies and organizations committed to preserving free speech and basic rights on the Internet by taking steps to shutting off the government's mass surveillance capabilities.

Watch the campaign video and see a full list of participants here: http://ResetTheNet.org

More than 20 organizations and companies support the launch of the campaign, including Fight For The Future (who initiated the campaign) along with reddit, CREDO Mobile, Imgur, Greenpeace, Libertarian Party, FireDogLake, Thunderclap, DuckDuckGo, Disconnect.Me, Demand Progress, Access, Free Press, Restore the Fourth, AIDS Policy Project, PolitiHacks, OpenMedia, Free Software Foundation, Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Code Pink, Popular Resistance, Participatory Politics Foundation, BoingBoing, Public Knowledge, Amicus, New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute, Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Student Net Alliance, and the Center for Democracy and Technology.

Organizations and companies across the technology industry and political spectrum oppose the bulk collection of data on all internet users. Reset The Net is a day of action to secure and encrypt the web to shut out the government's mass surveillance capabilities.

The Reset The Net website details the coalition of companies and organizations which are participating, either by improving their own security for users or promoting privacy tools to their members. Internet users are invited to join in on the day of Reset The Net to install privacy and encryption tools and secure their personal digital footprint against intrusive surveillance.


To schedule an interview with an organizer from one of these groups, contact:
Tiffiniy Cheng or Evan Greer, Fight for the Future
Phone: 978-852-6457, 413-367-6255
Email: press@fightforthefuture.org


Fight for the Future works to excite the Internet to fight for the public good, our basic rights and freedoms. Founded in 2011, we're known for effective, viral organizing and mass engagement through the distributed organizing platforms we've built, including the SOPA protests in the winter of 2011-2012 and the Internet Defense League. For more information, visit www.fightforthefuture.org or our Facebook and Twitter pages.

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Please spread the word through your Facebooks, Twitters, or any other social media outlet you use. THe more people we get on board with this, the stronger the message will be for the NSA.

I wish there was this much opposition to technology service companies selling personal information in bulk to advertisers and other interested parties for profit.

There is, it's just that the internet is a very big place, and you can't exactly take a quick glance around at the other nearby URLs to see what's happening in that neck of the woods. Or is that what the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button on Google was for? I never checked.

The gov can control it anyway
....

its not so hard to get around laws/exert control when you have the $$$/numbers/political-worldly power

...actually... that was me being slightly pessemistic.... it is good to stand up for what you can... though ideally and really... the only way to fully beat the system is by refusing to play by "their" game.... and that definitely includes fighting/bucking it...

Jesse Booth said:

There is, it's just that the internet is a very big place, and you can't exactly take a quick glance around at the other nearby URLs to see what's happening in that neck of the woods. Or is that what the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button on Google was for? I never checked.

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I haven't heard so much about it as people go on about Snowden and the NSA. It's everywhere, in radio, in newspapers, on the internet, etc. Then you have Apple coming out with their press releases about how they are "fighting the man" and not releasing customers personal information, because they are such heroes... even though they've been exploiting that information for years. But who is talking about that in these discussions? A very small few.

I'm trying to figure out exactly what people think the government wants. Oh, the fed can spy on us! Obviously they are going to... um... have a committee meeting about what Cindy posted on Facebook about her breakfast?

Every article I've read about NSA actions has looked like they were doing what they were supposed to do as a security organization. Until I see otherwise, I can't support this kind of mass paranoia which interferes with the ability of the country to protect us from actual threats to our personal freedoms.

Phoenix Venus said:

The gov can control it anyway
....

its not so hard to get around laws/exert control when you have the $$$/numbers/political-worldly power

...actually... that was me being slightly pessemistic.... it is good to stand up for what you can... though ideally and really... the only way to fully beat the system is by refusing to play by "their" game.... and that definitely includes fighting/bucking it...

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And also knowing who your "enemy" actually is, if there is one. Which is the hardest of all.

Yes our freedom is disappearing. There is a US Federal agent who posts on Astrologyweekly who hacks my computer when I post here. I have to watch the external modem indicator lights and CPU meter and if I see anything unusual I immediately shut off the computer. Even so some **** gets through that I have to look for and delete. So I do not post so often anymore.

Culpeper said:

Yes our freedom is disappearing. There is a US Federal agent who posts on Astrologyweekly who hacks my computer when I post here. I have to watch the external modem indicator lights and CPU meter and if I see anything unusual I immediately shut off the computer. Even so some **** gets through that I have to look for and delete. So I do not post so often anymore.

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I'm curious how you found out and what makes you think this?

We are being "watched" a lot more that is true but I don't think it's the NSA's fault. Parents keep their children under more surveillance than any gov organization, for example. I saw a documentary that mentioned a middle school that gave students laptops but recorded everything they did on them (to make sure they were using the devices for school purposes, of course), including using the built-in cameras to watch them. This was a side note and not even what the documentary was about... the documentary was just about the advancements of technology and didn't raise any sort of question about the surveillance activities of the school, and everyone interviewed acted like those activities were perfectly acceptable.

We activate GPS devices in everything from phones to cars to babies and pets. Then we act surprised and outraged when we find out hackers have found a way to access this data. Droves of people put all their personal information online for everyone to see using various social media sites. Copy machines record everything that is copied digitally. Numerous websites are devoted to digging up information on people without them knowing for a fee to the user.

I read a book, as well, that claimed that this "information age" was a golden age for sociology and psychology to predict human behavior because of all the easily accessible details of peoples lives that are recorded, amassed and then can be analyzed. The book then went on to detail these findings, and I couldn't finish because I was too disturbed by how they were getting this information plus it wasn't that good of a book even if the core idea was intriguing [if anyone is interested, the book is called "Bursts: The Hidden Patterns Behind Everything We Do, from Your E-mail to Bloody Crusades". It actually supports astrological influences in behavior through the raw data]. Facebook data has been used to publish studies about posting behavior without any consent, and when the news hits people act flustered and a little upset, but it goes just as quick as news about the next celebrity drama.

To me, there are way more examples of how we are willingly monitored and monitoring than not. This NSA thing seems like a foil; something for people to direct their growing unrest towards because of the fact that they've allowed this into their lives on all levels. It avoids any real issue by automatically labeling the government as the bad guy in all this. And what's ironic is the NSA is probably the most legitimate excuse for monitoring activities than anything else! Or, perhaps that's by design. And that's my conspiracy theory for the day.

Flapjacks said:

And also knowing who your "enemy" actually is, if there is one. Which is the hardest of all.

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Well looking into the muslim brotherhood and their connects with the cia..... is a good start.

But on a personal, day to day level, its just a matter of observation. like the game mafia.

My concern isn't what the information is being used for; it's what people will inevitably try to use it for. Imagine - the perfect gold mine for whatever political party has its finger deepest into the NSA! An unlimited source of extortion options, scandals, privacy intusion... it'd be like Watergate. If Nixon hadn't been caught. And if it extended across to every facet of people's personal lives. And if it gathered data on everyone in our nation.

This level of information gathering is a powder keg that will inevitably explode into the greatest political machine ever witnessed by mankind. It's just a matter of who's agenda you want to be ruthlessly enforced: the liberals or the conservatives.

For example, imagine that one day there's a Democrat running for President that the Republicans really want to shoot down, or vise-versa. They could go through, not only things that this individual has posted online for everyone to see, willingly exposing this information, but also where they've driven to over the years, what they've spoken to people in private over phone calls, their search histories...

They might not find anything they've definitely done to publicly emberass them, but enough to convince their spouse that Mr./Mrs. Bigshot has been screwing around with an old ex. Or maybe they could leak all their dirty searches on Google to whatever side of the press would tear the person to shreds with the information.

And of course, there's always a risk of another McCarthy-style witchhunt. Probably not for communism again, but another political philosophy the government wants to drive out. And don't expect the American people to be rational in a percieved crisis; a person is a rational being that can be reasoned with. People, however, are panicky, vicious, and quick to point fingers.

In essence, the NSA serves a purpose now. but government rarel lets go of power. At the end of the day, it's all a matter of whether you want to fight against this system now or later.

Jesse Booth said:

In essence, the NSA serves a purpose now. but government rarel lets go of power. At the end of the day, it's all a matter of whether you want to fight against this system now or later.

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They've been serving a purpose for over 60 years.

There are a lot more legal structures in place to deal with government corruption than for "market" corruption. The government wire-tapping your phone can clearly be a case of intrusion of privacy and violation of constitutional rights, and contested as such in a court. However, when have you ever heard anyone get suspicious at all about the "your call may be monitored" disclaimers when you call customer service hotlines? Perhaps if the government put a disclaimer in whenever you use the phone people would be okay with it?

You are concerned about what the information is used for, it seems, but you also seem to trust a business more than your government. Don't forget, the US government was potentially going to be overthrown by a fascist dictatorship lead by a consortium of buisnessmen (backing by JP Morgan) just before WWII.

Flapjacks said:

They've been serving a purpose for over 60 years.

There are a lot more legal structures in place to deal with government corruption than for "market" corruption. The government wire-tapping your phone can clearly be a case of intrusion of privacy and violation of constitutional rights, and contested as such in a court. However, when have you ever heard anyone get suspicious at all about the "your call may be monitored" disclaimers when you call customer service hotlines? Perhaps if the government put a disclaimer in whenever you use the phone people would be okay with it?

You are concerned about what the information is used for, it seems, but you also seem to trust a business more than your government. Don't forget, the US government was potentially going to be overthrown by a fascist dictatorship lead by a consortium of buisnessmen (backing by JP Morgan) just before WWII.

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The NSA has been around for a long time. Their ability to store near limitless information on everyone's internet activities is recent. I myself am an extremely paranoid ******* with what I put online (except for with my name and opinions, I guess), even if the rest of America isn't.
Also, I don't trust government or businesses.

Jesse Booth said:

I myself am an extremely paranoid ******* with what I put online (except for with my name and opinions, I guess), even if the rest of America isn't.

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I attempted to clean up my internet trail a while back, with moderate success, but I've still been tracked down through the internet searches before (by a friend thankfully). She told me it was pretty creepy that while she was searching for me, she saw ads saying they could provide her with private information like my mother SSN and so on.

It's interesting how there was a lot of assumptions in the beginning about how interactions on the internet were "safer" because it was anonymous and people could remain at a distance. I think that idea has been thoroughly torn to pieces.

Flapjacks' question:

That is what astrology can do: find out who is spying on you and who your enemies really are. In addition, I have studied a number of other paranormal arts since the 1960s. When the government declassified remote viewing in 1995 I studied that psychic espionage system.

Back in 2010 I detected some odd things including a wiretap on my telephone line. I traced it back to someone posting here with two accounts and I found he was a Fed. There is another Fed here as well. So be aware that the Federal government is watching here and other web sites and there agents post and try to manipulate the discussions.

Recently, I wanted to post something on remote viewing at another web site where I had an inactive account. When I looked I found the same two Feds posting there under a number of account names. So I signed on under another name myself and put up a spy avatar so I would not be missed.