On Mon, Jul 8, 2013 at 11:07 PM, James Salsman <jsalsman(a)gmail.com> wrote: I discussed this a bit yesterday in the talk page and will flesh that out more, but the specific concern (raised here, on the blog, and in the talk page) is that stopwatching is too US-focused. When counting those concerns as anti-stopwatching votes, the ratio appears more balanced (and the numbers are quite small, as well). Would publicizing these free and open secure alternatives to Those are international in application so it would not have the same particular problem. (I'm frankly skeptical that any particular set of tools can protect someone from a determined government, so I have not looked very hard at prism-break, but at least conceptually it would seem to be aligned.) Luis -- Luis Villa Deputy General Counsel Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext. 6810 NOTICE: *This message may be confidential or legally privileged. If you have received it by accident, please delete it and let us know about the mistake. As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity.*

On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 1:55 PM, Amgine <amgine(a)wikimedians.ca> wrote: It does not! I think it is more like: 1. Don't sign stopwatching.us, or do anything else too US-focused. 2. Internally, do be careful with (or as necessary improve) WMF's own privacy processes. 3. Externally, do (unspecified something). For #2, see the discussion on the privacy policy revision: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy/Call_for_input_%282013%29 For #3, we're still very open to doing that unspecified something. We just don't see any consensus on what the unspecified something is, other than "not something US-focused". So please, we're definitely open to anything around #3 that can get consensus, like (say) James' suggestion that we promote prism-break. We would actively *like* to do that (several people here have signed various petitions as individuals, for example). We just don't see what that is yet. Hope that helps clarify- Luis -- Luis Villa Deputy General Counsel Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext. 6810 NOTICE: *This message may be confidential or legally privileged. If you have received it by accident, please delete it and let us know about the mistake. As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity.*

On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 10:24 PM, Amgine <amgine(a)wikimedians.ca> wrote: I should have been more specific and detailed yesterday; I apologize but was crunched for time. As long as most of the world's internet traffic passes through the US, we will obviously need to do some things that are targeted at the US government. However, there are two ways you can approach the US government (or any government): are we asking a government to protect everyone? Or are we asking the government to protect only their own citizens, and implicitly or explicitly encouraging taking actions against the rest of the world? That second category is what I think people are (rightly) concerned about. In other words, we want to be very, very careful not to take positions that could be seen as implicitly or explicitly saying it is OK to spy on non-American members of our community. For example, a letter to the US government focusing on guaranteeing us the right to be completely transparent for everyone would likely fall into the first category and be acceptable; a letter or petition encouraging the US government "not to spy on American citizens" (as some of these have quite literally been phrased) would likely fall into the latter category and so not be acceptable. That is what I meant by "US-focused" - I hope it clarifies. Luis -- Luis Villa Deputy General Counsel Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext. 6810 NOTICE: *This message may be confidential or legally privileged. If you have received it by accident, please delete it and let us know about the mistake. As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity.*

Luis Villa, 09/07/2013 21:41: Have WMNYC and WMDC considered supporting it? It's unclear to me what kind of support is needed or useful apart from signing. Nemo