Hello advocacy advisors,
To follow up on Liam's note, the EFF has published two statements on PRISM and government surveillance.
"International Customers: It's Time to Call on US Internet Companies to Demand Accountability and Transparency" - https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/international-customers-its-time-call-...
"86 Civil Liberties Groups and Internet Companies Demand an End to NSA Spying" - https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/86-civil-liberties-groups-and-internet...
Following this...
As those of you on the Wikimedia-L list will have seen, I may have started a little self-perpetuating storm over there by asking what implications (moral, legal, technical) PRISM has for us. I think it's been fairly well clarified that we have relatively minimal exposure in the legal/technical sense due to the limited amount of information we keep secretly anyway. Of more potential interest, to me personally at least, is what moral implications this has for us.
As was mentioned over there, apparently the WMF is preparing a blogpost about this topic to publicly deny any association with the concept. I think, as was suggested, that it is important this IS drafted publicly on Meta to make sure that the wording doesn't smack of hiding behind carefully chosen phrases like "no 'direct' access" such as was used by other tech companies.
Moreover, there is now https://www.stopwatching.us/ that many of our 'close friends' like the EFF, Mozilla, Internet Archive, American Library Association... have signed up to. I do NOT think that this is an equivalent of SOPA in the sense that we should take protest action on our own sites, but I DO think it is worthwhile our joining this list of signatories. It would seem to me to be, literally, the least we could do to declare opposition to something that directly harms our mission of providing uncensored (directly, or by self-censorship for fear of gov't reprisal) access to knowledge to people.
-Liam / Wittylama
wittylama.com Peace, love & metadata
On 12 June 2013 04:51, Stephen LaPorte slaporte@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello advocacy advisors,
To follow up on Liam's note, the EFF has published two statements on PRISM and government surveillance.
"International Customers: It's Time to Call on US Internet Companies to Demand Accountability and Transparency" - https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/international-customers-its-time-call-...
"86 Civil Liberties Groups and Internet Companies Demand an End to NSA Spying" - https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/86-civil-liberties-groups-and-internet...
-- Stephen LaPorte Legal Counsel Wikimedia Foundation
*For legal reasons, I may only serve as an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation. This means I may not give legal advice to or serve as a lawyer for community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity.*
Advocacy_Advisors mailing list Advocacy_Advisors@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
Liam,
Given that 1/1000th sampling of article readers' access logs has recently been increased to complete archival for 30 days, it seems preposterous and misleading to suggest that "we have relatively minimal exposure in the legal/technical sense." Would you please elaborate?
I would prefer using banner space to urge a boycott of and individual court actions against the companies who have been acquiescing to the government's data access demands until Congress passes a law abolishing and forbidding the practice of eavesdropping, because of the high rate of incarceration in the US. Do you believe there is a direct causal relationship from the extent of surveillance and the number of criminal convictions involving mandatory minimum sentences in the US?
Sincerely, James Salsman
On Wed, Jun 12, 2013 at 1:51 PM, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote:
Following this...
As those of you on the Wikimedia-L list will have seen, I may have started a little self-perpetuating storm over there by asking what implications (moral, legal, technical) PRISM has for us. I think it's been fairly well clarified that we have relatively minimal exposure in the legal/technical sense due to the limited amount of information we keep secretly anyway. Of more potential interest, to me personally at least, is what moral implications this has for us.
As was mentioned over there, apparently the WMF is preparing a blogpost about this topic to publicly deny any association with the concept. I think, as was suggested, that it is important this IS drafted publicly on Meta to make sure that the wording doesn't smack of hiding behind carefully chosen phrases like "no 'direct' access" such as was used by other tech companies.
Moreover, there is now https://www.stopwatching.us/ that many of our 'close friends' like the EFF, Mozilla, Internet Archive, American Library Association... have signed up to. I do NOT think that this is an equivalent of SOPA in the sense that we should take protest action on our own sites, but I DO think it is worthwhile our joining this list of signatories. It would seem to me to be, literally, the least we could do to declare opposition to something that directly harms our mission of providing uncensored (directly, or by self-censorship for fear of gov't reprisal) access to knowledge to people.
-Liam / Wittylama
wittylama.com Peace, love & metadata
On 12 June 2013 04:51, Stephen LaPorte slaporte@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello advocacy advisors,
To follow up on Liam's note, the EFF has published two statements on PRISM and government surveillance.
"International Customers: It's Time to Call on US Internet Companies to Demand Accountability and Transparency" - https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/international-customers-its-time-call-...
"86 Civil Liberties Groups and Internet Companies Demand an End to NSA Spying" - https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/86-civil-liberties-groups-and-internet...
-- Stephen LaPorte Legal Counsel Wikimedia Foundation
For legal reasons, I may only serve as an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation. This means I may not give legal advice to or serve as a lawyer for community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity.
Advocacy_Advisors mailing list Advocacy_Advisors@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
Advocacy_Advisors mailing list Advocacy_Advisors@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
On 12 June 2013 16:41, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com wrote:
Liam,
Given that 1/1000th sampling of article readers' access logs has recently been increased to complete archival for 30 days, it seems preposterous and misleading to suggest that "we have relatively minimal exposure in the legal/technical sense." Would you please elaborate?
You're forgetting the crucial word "relatively".
I would prefer using banner space to urge a boycott of and individual court actions against the companies who have been acquiescing to the government's data access demands until Congress passes a law abolishing and forbidding the practice of eavesdropping, because of the high rate of incarceration in the US.
If you would like to gain consensus that Wikimedia projects use the banner space to promote a boycott of particular technology companies, then I suggest you write a userspace essay to that effect and then try to gain consensus on each project. Good luck with that.
Do you believe there is a direct causal relationship from the extent of surveillance and the number of criminal convictions involving mandatory minimum sentences in the US?
I have no idea. Perhaps you could do some research into the matter and publish in a criminology journal.
Liam,
Relatively minimal exposure, to me, does not mean a thousand times more exposure than we used to have.
I've already posted this to wikimedia-l:
"increasing surveillance ... does not decrease ... criminal activities. Ironically, ... increased surveillance might ... increase the number of inmates" -- http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42937.pdf%EF%BB%BF
There is also the reason from first principles that everyone is guilty of something if you look hard enough, and federal government employees are not exempt from mandatory reporting requirements. All of them are required to be truthful if asked what illegal activities they suspect in the course of their work, which is a common question for both law enforcement and intelligence gathering employees, who are charged with interpretation of the PRISM data.
Can you think of any reasons that increased surveillance would not lead to increased incarceration?
On Wed, Jun 12, 2013 at 3:14 PM, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote:
On 12 June 2013 16:41, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com wrote:
Liam,
Given that 1/1000th sampling of article readers' access logs has recently been increased to complete archival for 30 days, it seems preposterous and misleading to suggest that "we have relatively minimal exposure in the legal/technical sense." Would you please elaborate?
You're forgetting the crucial word "relatively".
I would prefer using banner space to urge a boycott of and individual court actions against the companies who have been acquiescing to the government's data access demands until Congress passes a law abolishing and forbidding the practice of eavesdropping, because of the high rate of incarceration in the US.
If you would like to gain consensus that Wikimedia projects use the banner space to promote a boycott of particular technology companies, then I suggest you write a userspace essay to that effect and then try to gain consensus on each project. Good luck with that.
Do you believe there is a direct causal relationship from the extent of surveillance and the number of criminal convictions involving mandatory minimum sentences in the US?
I have no idea. Perhaps you could do some research into the matter and publish in a criminology journal.
Advocacy_Advisors mailing list Advocacy_Advisors@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
Hi all,
there´s another statement some NGOs ans CS groups have put together in order to send it to the UN HR Council (which is currently meeting) on the PRIS/NSA Case. Support came from "Europan Digital Rights" (BE) and other influential NGOs like Bits of Freedom (NL), Open Rights Group (UK), La Quadrature Du Net (FR) or Knowledge Ecology International.
http://bestbits.net/prism-nsa/
Personally, I would love to sign it, but I am also interested to read the WMF statement first.
Best, Jan
2013/6/12 James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com
Liam,
Relatively minimal exposure, to me, does not mean a thousand times more exposure than we used to have.
I've already posted this to wikimedia-l:
"increasing surveillance ... does not decrease ... criminal activities. Ironically, ... increased surveillance might ... increase the number of inmates" -- http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42937.pdf
There is also the reason from first principles that everyone is guilty of something if you look hard enough, and federal government employees are not exempt from mandatory reporting requirements. All of them are required to be truthful if asked what illegal activities they suspect in the course of their work, which is a common question for both law enforcement and intelligence gathering employees, who are charged with interpretation of the PRISM data.
Can you think of any reasons that increased surveillance would not lead to increased incarceration?
On Wed, Jun 12, 2013 at 3:14 PM, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote:
On 12 June 2013 16:41, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com wrote:
Liam,
Given that 1/1000th sampling of article readers' access logs has recently been increased to complete archival for 30 days, it seems preposterous and misleading to suggest that "we have relatively minimal exposure in the legal/technical sense." Would you please elaborate?
You're forgetting the crucial word "relatively".
I would prefer using banner space to urge a boycott of and individual court actions against the companies who have been acquiescing to the government's data access demands until Congress passes a law abolishing and forbidding the practice of eavesdropping, because of the high rate of incarceration in the US.
If you would like to gain consensus that Wikimedia projects use the
banner
space to promote a boycott of particular technology companies, then I suggest you write a userspace essay to that effect and then try to gain consensus on each project. Good luck with that.
Do you believe there is a direct causal relationship from the extent of surveillance and the number of criminal convictions involving mandatory minimum sentences in the US?
I have no idea. Perhaps you could do some research into the matter and publish in a criminology journal.
Advocacy_Advisors mailing list Advocacy_Advisors@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
Advocacy_Advisors mailing list Advocacy_Advisors@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
On Wed, Jun 12, 2013 at 9:30 AM, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com wrote:
Liam,
Relatively minimal exposure, to me, does not mean a thousand times more exposure than we used to have.
I've already posted this to wikimedia-l:
"increasing surveillance ... does not decrease ... criminal activities. Ironically, ... increased surveillance might ... increase the number of inmates" -- http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42937.pdf%EF%BB%BF
There is also the reason from first principles that everyone is guilty of something if you look hard enough, and federal government employees are not exempt from mandatory reporting requirements. All of them are required to be truthful if asked what illegal activities they suspect in the course of their work, which is a common question for both law enforcement and intelligence gathering employees, who are charged with interpretation of the PRISM data.
Can you think of any reasons that increased surveillance would not lead to increased incarceration?
I may perhaps not be up to date on the latest details of PRISM, but as I understood, it is meant to spy on non-American citizens (with a bit of an error rate). I would expect that the incarceration of American citizens would not be a direct consequence of the programme, or at least one quite minor, and at the most I would expect an increase in arrests or targeted killings of foreign citizens (or in less extreme case, putting them on no flights and sanctions lists) based on the info gathered. Do you have some data to suggest that either of the possible outcomes could have happened, or that the US incarceration rate is a bigger concern than the possible breach of privacy of trusting internet users?
Best regards, Bence
On Wed, Jun 12, 2013 at 3:14 PM, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote:
On 12 June 2013 16:41, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com wrote:
Liam,
Given that 1/1000th sampling of article readers' access logs has recently been increased to complete archival for 30 days, it seems preposterous and misleading to suggest that "we have relatively minimal exposure in the legal/technical sense." Would you please elaborate?
You're forgetting the crucial word "relatively".
I would prefer using banner space to urge a boycott of and individual court actions against the companies who have been acquiescing to the government's data access demands until Congress passes a law abolishing and forbidding the practice of eavesdropping, because of the high rate of incarceration in the US.
If you would like to gain consensus that Wikimedia projects use the
banner
space to promote a boycott of particular technology companies, then I suggest you write a userspace essay to that effect and then try to gain consensus on each project. Good luck with that.
Do you believe there is a direct causal relationship from the extent of surveillance and the number of criminal convictions involving mandatory minimum sentences in the US?
I have no idea. Perhaps you could do some research into the matter and publish in a criminology journal.
Advocacy_Advisors mailing list Advocacy_Advisors@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
Advocacy_Advisors mailing list Advocacy_Advisors@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
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