Why is that not mentioned in a blog post? Actually, why is the whole FOSS community being so eerily silent when identical proposals are being advanced in the UK’s Online Safety Bill and the EU’s Chat Control Bill? No one appears to have any faith that these laws would be utilized for good, so why is everyone so curiously silent?
There are petitions like this, yes, but there ought to be a SOPA or Net Neutrality-style awareness campaign because these bills go after the basic underpinnings of online privacy, and if they pass, there will not be any places for pro-privacy technology to flee to as the rest of the world follows West’s lead. Have the NSA and other agencies really corrupted everything?
While I do sympathize for privacy, the culture and norms of the region differs from the ideals of the American continent. One can protest such bills, but reforming societal values, morals, and social mores, would be the true step towards (individual/personal) liberties/rights.
I personally believe that the bills of the UK and EU should be as representative of its people and only its people. A bit patriotic in opinion. I think their upheld leadership and standards are generally respected on a civilization, if not global level.
If safety is the issue that needs to be addressed, then it shall be law.
And who’s West? There’s no such thing as the absolute/perfect center and/or leader of the world.
Yeah, I did see that post, but now it’s buried under a bunch of newer stuff. What I meant by “the whole FOSS community being so eerily silent” wasn’t that literally everyone’s silent (otherwise I’d be clueless), but more like people aren’t speaking up enough about how serious things are.
Look, I’m sorry for bringing this topic up again and again, but I’m feeling pretty bummed out and confused. Remember when everyone banded together to oppose SOPA and PIPA, blanketed the entire Web with banners and even convincing Wikipedia to go dark? It actually worked, and it felt like we saved the internet from turning into a total nightmare! And even though we lost the similar battle for Net Neutrality a few years later, at least we tried and got people talking about it.
Now we’re facing a way bigger threat - the supposed “free” world’s leading powers are seemingly teaming up to make it illegal for our tech NOT to spy on us. Even if it’s not the right time to start making serious noise, I’d still expect all privacy-related projects to speak out early and be on top of new developments.
But instead, it appears that everyone has withdrawn into different levels of denial. I2P hasn’t said anything about it, Tor’s Global Encryption Day post doesn’t mention the bills that could render it pointless, and Signal’s latest post makes it seem like it’s only a UK problem. Plus, even though they warned about the EARN IT Act when it was first introduced, they haven’t said anything about its reintroductions or Chat Control…
It’s really sad to see Internet freedom ruined like this. I thought we’d fight til the bitter end, but it seems like we’re just quietly accepting its demise…
I don’t trust data traffic anonymization enough, I can’t be sure in the validity of claims.
“Our tech” is the incorrect terminology because one cannot be certain if one’s tech is truly one’s tech. I would say it is the usual case that the tech companies, not the governments, fund these bill proposals. Such case scenarios would be considered surveillance capitalism, if not government surveillance. The protests are against the corporations for infringing against freedoms, not the democratic/constitutional governments, whose foundations support the ideals of freedom. That said, I find it appalling that you would shift the blame onto the governments than onto the very corporations that holds this power. Unless you are talking about (civil) judicial oversight or war rhetoric, I maintain my opinion about surveillance capitalism as the culprit for such bills.
!!!ATTENTION!!!
I don’t know if your argument is considered a valid lawful argument, it might even aligns with criminal endorsement. The EARN IT Act of 2022 is a bill proposal to prevent/punish online sexual exploitation of children. Such arguments against this bill would merit the reputation of a criminal antagonism!
Maybe arguments against these bills does have merit, but a counter proposal for bill revision would do the job.