Next time someone organizes something similar, can they think of a worlwide action? Can they make something which doesn't sound like "Worldwide anti-american day" but rather "Worldwide day of support to the debate that US citizen started"?
US citizens are only 313 millions and the US law protects you against surveillance. We, the rest of the world, are all subject to this surveillance in unlimited way.
Might sound lame, but as a foreigner, I deliberately avoid posting my opinions on the subject by fear of repercussion for the day I'll cross the US border and they'll have decided unilaterally that my opinions are suspicious.
From my perspective, it's like they read everything, look at your Facebook posts, your emails and what not, trying to profile you as a threat. And when they do so, you'll get on some listed that's automatically generated by some crazy scheme, and you'll no way to change that because you're not American, you're just some unimportant foreigner.
So although I have very strong opinions on the matter, I'm effectively censored by fear of hindering my future.
A person who would post those comments and articles on Facebook and use a false name there... could already be considered as using a fake ID AND be contrary to US interests and therefore, is probably not allowed to enter the US or fly over it.
Frankly, U.S. Congressmen don't care what foreigners think about U.S. surveillance policy. Foreigners aren't going to vote them out of office. I think the EFF, etc. are wise to focus their limited resources in ways that maximize their chances of being heard.
The Snowden revelations make clear that U.S. citizens are not protected against surveillance by their own government. Just because foreigners are less protected doesn't change that.
> Frankly, U.S. Congressmen don't care what Americans think about U.S. surveillance policy.
They clearly do, because they spend quite a bit of effort trying to shape what Americans think about it, which is inconsistent with not caring what Americans think.
> They're concerned with they want Americans to think about surveillance. That's markedly different from caring what we actually think.
Having a desire for somone to think a particular thing about a subject is exactly caring what they actually think about a subject.
I think the distinction you want to draw is more between being influenced by what Americans actually think, on the one hand, and attempting to influence what Americans actually think, on the other.
But then, again, the only rational reason for members of Congress to try to influence what Americans think is because they think that what Americans actually think impacts the prospects for their political agenda, e.g., by influencing their likelihood of getting elected or influencing the behavior of other members of Congress or the President (perhaps by influencing those actors electoral prospects), so, really, I think that even that distinction is somewhat false. The reason politicians want to shape opinions is because politicians actions do respond to opinions.
> Frankly, U.S. Congressmen don't care what foreigners think about U.S. surveillance policy.
Congress might care when US corporations' bottom lines are affected by the surveillance. In fact, it's starting to be reported that US corporations are being affected already.
EDIT: To be clear, when US corporations bottom lines in sales to entities in foreign countries. IBM and Cisco have already attributed slumps in sales to foreign entities due to NSA surveillance.
This is true. I doubt that most Congressmen are able to see this obvious consequence in advance, but when the corporate lobbying picks up as a result they'll start to care.
You should care, because without any protection for our own citizens, there is no possibility of protection for non-citizens.
That being said, if you best wanted to ensure that no US agency ever spies on you, a good start would be for your government to prove it never spies on US citizens. That runs both ways: you want to trust us, we want to trust you.
So, it takes both: a strong localized protection, and a verifiable remote protection. We're working on our side of the first part, if you already have the first part on your side, the next best thing to do is start working on the second.
What about the Five Eyes countries? This is less of an adversarial "you are spying on us, so we should be able to spy on you," and more of a "the NSA has invited our country to spy on US citizens so that they can get data from us." At the very least, some of that responsibility comes from the NSA.
I'm not speaking to specific actions, or existing agreements, I'm speaking to reciprocity. The most effective way to get from others is to give the same.
Edit: actually, 5 eyes is a perfect example of a negative (in this context) reciprocal agreement. We should work to create the opposite sort of reciprocal agreement.
But You-Don't-Spy-On-Me-I-Don't-Spy-On-You agreements aren't really worth much. If you're doing spying it's not out in the open, and how many countries would be willing to (e.g.) embargo trade with the US if spying every came to light? This goes the same way with China too. The US has called out China on espionage, yet where are the repercussions for China? Did the US terminate trade with China?
Haha, the last American who uses a French service shuts off the lights, please ;) Wait, no, we're already in the dark.
You're right in saying it should be symmetrical. It goes this way:
- US person is protected from US abuses by US laws,
- French person is protected by French laws,
- We have Safe Harbour so French's people data goes freely to the US,
- French people aren't protected by US laws,
- And symmetrical.
The cross-country problem is a big one, prompting for the creation of international organizations for the protection of international citizens.
The letter focuses on trying to enact change in the US government with regard to internet surveillance, for everyone. It gives no indication that the efforts are intended only to improve the situation for American citizens.
> ... and the US law protects you against surveillance.
> It gives no indication that the efforts are intended only to improve the situation for American citizens.
It gives no indication for foreigners either. Actually the letter is very fuzzy about the demands to the government(s). It should list action points and criteriae so governments/crowds know when the movement will be dissolved and don't get afraid of the limits.
Moreover the way we leverage politics in France is quite different from the US ;) So we may need to adapt the mode of action to local traditions.
> The recent revelations would suggest otherwise.
The recent revelations suggest the law was broken, so at least you had some rights. But we foreigners have no law about not being spied by the US intelligence.
At multiple points during the planning calls for this campaign, we significantly changed our plans, the language, and our tact to make sure that our call was viewed as being considerate of international concerns. This letter originally had language to that effect, calling out GCHQ as a major part of the problem, and that surveillance does not only effect US citizens. For evidence of this, take a look at the "And Everyone Else Too" in one of the Facebook share graphics, which I added early this morning in response to concerns that that particular graphic was too US-centric.
When the banner goes live, we'll likely do IP-geolocation and offer users who are like outside the US a link to necessaryandproportionate.org, a petition to be delivered to international lawmakers.
However, given that many of the organizations behind the movement are US-based, it definitely still leans US-focussed. In some ways that's for the best: many of our organizations don't know how to be effective in changing laws in other countries. For example, during our planning it was suggested that we set up dial-in numbers for each country. After some research, we found that in many countries legislator's offices view calls as a nuisance and do not respond positively to them.
So, what I'm trying to say is: we're definitely trying to address this. And if privacy groups in other countries join us in setting up similar actions (as with the German rallies in solidarity with StopWatchingUs), we'll happily send international visitors their way.
Then it ignores the reality of the law which is very specific regarding the difference between American citizens and the rest of the world. Not that the NSA cares either way.
>US citizens are only 313 millions and the US law protects you against surveillance.
This actually isn't true. The USA PATRIOT Act, Title II expanded surveillance procedures greatly so that pretty much anything is covered under it, it is so broad and encompassing. Someone on TV even quoted from it that it said it allowed surveillance for "any reason whatsoever" or some words to that effect.
Next time someone organizes something similar, can they think of a worlwide action? Can they make something which doesn't sound like "Worldwide anti-american day" but rather "Worldwide day of support to the debate that US citizen started"?
US citizens are only 313 millions and the US law protects you against surveillance. We, the rest of the world, are all subject to this surveillance in unlimited way.