Re: anniversary

[Jesse Sanford <jesse@columbia.edu>]

[: hacktivism :]


Hi there.

There seems to be a rough consensus based on the posts thus far that
JED is not really an attempt to Jam Echelon, but (in effect) a
publicity stunt.  It's an effort that's trying to inform people about
possibly illegal and unethical government surveillance.

Though one person has written in favor of government surveillance, or
at least from a more ambiguous position, I'm guessing there's also
rough consensus on the need for privacy and that most of us would
prefer Echelon et al. not exist.

So ... it seems that the question is whether a publicity stunt would
be helpful in achieving this goal.

Unless we have technology that can actually attack Echelon, or
high-placed secret society members who can lift a finger and have it
disassembled, we have to convince its makers to disassemble it: in
other words, policymakers in the cooperating countries.

    marvin> remember a news blurb about JED isnt enough, you have to
    marvin> effect a change in the mindset of the people. That will
    marvin> take work. I'd like to believe that it can be
    marvin> accomplished.

Almost all the cooperating countries are representative democracies in
one form or another.  What they share is that, on the whole, the
government does not do what most of the people want.  Changing the
mindset of the people as a whole is therefore less important than
increasing the political weight (implications) of supporting or
opposing Echelon.  It's important to generate dispute in a few key
arenas (some academic journals, then the mainstream press outlets that
are part of the political process), and capitalize on the fact that
most people (including politicians) are probably on our side on this
one.

It would help to make *supporting* free access by law enforcement to
Echelon data seem like as unreasonable and radical an idea as
possible.

We can generate press and a dispute by gathering and distributing as
much information about the system as we can and by drawing attention
to that information.

Given the time and resources, it is possible to do this by getting a
lot of journalists to write a lot of articles and produce a lot of
other material on the topic.

We could also create a media spectacle:

    marvin>   if someone is going to plan another JED, it should be a
    marvin> much larger event, and something that will generate ALOT
    marvin> more media attention. To be honest, you're pretty much
    marvin> preaching to the converted. That does nothing. I sincerely
    marvin> hope if something on this scale is attempted that the
    marvin> propper planning is put into effect, and far better
    marvin> results are achieved.

I agree with you, and I hope you'll begin organizing the event!  To
realize your dream, we will need a large group of committed core
organizers and we'll need to spend a lot of time working on coalition
building with other concerned organizations -- some of which actually
have funding and might sponsor or provide assistance with something
like this.

How was the last JED organized, and what resources are at our disposal
now?

jesse


[: hacktivism :]
[: for unsubscribe instructions or list info consult the list FAQ :]
[: http://hacktivism.tao.ca/ :]