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| howmany2 = Thousands of websites<ref name=Hill>{{cite web|last=Hattem|first=Julian|title=“The idea is to really harness the outrage of the Internet community in speaking out in one big voice on Feb. 11,” said Rainey Reitman, the director of activism at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/197859-thousands-of-sites-to-protest-nsa-spying#ixzz2sxBGnYy9 Follow us: @thehill on Twitter {{!}} TheHill on Facebook|url=http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/197859-thousands-of-sites-to-protest-nsa-spying|work=The Hill|publisher=The Hill|accessdate=10 February 2014}}</ref>
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Revision as of 02:42, 11 February 2014

The Day We Fight Back
The banner of The Day We Fight Back
DateFebruary 11, 2014
Location
Online

Webpage banner-advertisements
Caused byDigital privacy
GoalsRemoving NSA's cyber surveillance and a free Internet
MethodsWebsite banners and various actions
Parties
DWFB Planning Committee
DWFB Notable Participants
Government
Lead figures

Along with: Demand Progress, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future, Free Press organization, Reddit, Mozilla, and Boing Boing.

Number
Thousands of websites[2]
Motto: The Day We Fight Back against mass surveillance
thedaywefightback.org

The Day We Fight Back is a planned protest against mass surveillance by the National Security Agency (NSA)[3][4][5] scheduled for February 11, 2014.[3][4][5] The 'day of action' will primarily take the form of webpage banner-advertisements urging viewers to contact their lawmakers over issues surrounding cyber surveillance and a free Internet.[3][4][5]

Announced on January 10, 2014,[4] The Day We Fight Back was organized by David Segal, a former Democratic member of the Rhode Island House of Representatives and the executive director of Demand Progress.[6] Other groups involved in its promotion include digital rights groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future, and Free Press, as well as social media website Reddit, Firefox producer Mozilla, collaborative blogging website Boing Boing, and populist advocacy group '"The Other 98%".[3][4][5]

According to the official site, the protest will "ask legislators to oppose the FISA Improvements Act, support the USA Freedom Act, and enact protections for non-Americans."[7][8][9]

Background

The Day We Fight Back is planned as a day of "worldwide solidarity" in protest against NSA surveillance which would be at once an action against censorship and surveillance, and a commemoration of late "open-Internet activist" Aaron Swartz.[5] In the US, a main goal of the protest is to encourage passage of the USA Freedom Act, a bill that seeks to reign in telephone data collection. Additionally, the banner will urge people to call Congress and voice opposition to the FISA Improvements Act, which the ACLU has called "a dream come true for the NSA" that would "codify the NSA's unconstitutional call-records program and allow bulk collection of location data from mobile phone users."[10] Internationally, the goal is similar. A Guardian op-ed described the activists' objective globally as "to push authorities toward policies favoring liberty and privacy".[11]

Organizers posted to their website: "Together we will push back against powers that seek to observe, collect, and analyze our every digital action.Together, we will make it clear that such behavior is not compatible with democratic governance. Together, if we persist, we will win this fight.”[12] Rainey Reitman, director of activism at the EFF, said, “The idea is to really harness the outrage of the Internet community in speaking out in one big voice on Feb. 11." The protest comes a month after President Obama made a surveillance reform speech introducing his proposed changes to the collection of US citizens' data. Critics said the reformations wouldn't be "nearly enough".[2]

By February 10, more than 5,700 websites and organizations had signed up to show support by featuring The Day We a Fight Back banner for 24 hours.[13] The Huffington Post released images of various memes meant to be posted to sites like Facebook and Twitter as part of the event.[14] Tens of thousands of individuals pledged to make calls and Internet posts supporting surveillance reform.[12]

The "Reform Government Surveillance coalition",[15] which includes AOL, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Yahoo, joined the protest, though it was not clear how the sites would participate.[16]

The banner reads:

Dear Internet, we’re sick of complaining about the NSA. We want new laws that curtail online surveillance. Today we fight back.”[2]

Events

Various actions were scheduled to coincide with the Internet protest.

Bitbureauet, a Denmark-based think-tank, announced plans for a protest outside the US embassy in Copenhagen, using the slogan "tag internettet tilbage" ('take back the internet'). [17][18][19]

Restore the Fourth, an American organization, planned a protest outside the AT&T Building in San Francisco that houses Room 641A, the facility operated by AT&T for the U.S. National Security Agency. According to the organization, the protest will feature a speech by Mark Klein, the AT&T technician who publicly exposed the facility in 2006.[20][21][22][18]

The Pirate Party of Sweden will hold a demonstration in Stockholm with speeches by party founder Rick Falkvinge and party leader Anna Troberg.[23] Cryptoparty-Austria has announced plans for a rally in Forum Stadtpark in Graz.[24]

KBOO, an Oregon-based listener-funded radio station, scheduled a day of special programming related to internet activism.[25]

Promotion

"The Day We Fight Back" was promoted in a trailer for an upcoming documentary about Aaron Swartz, currently titled The Internet's Own Boy.[26] In the clip, the late activist comments on mass surveillance: "It is shocking to think that the accountability is so lax that they don't even have sort of basic statistics about how big the spying programme is. If the answer is, 'Oh, we're spying on so many people we can't possibly even count them,' then that's an awful lot of people." Five months after Swartz's death, the scale of a vast global surveillance program would be revealed in great detail through the release of top-secret NSA documents by Edward Snowden.[27]

Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! promoted The Day We Fight Back in an opinion article in the Athens News, noting Swartz's role in the digital rights movement calling for "another fight for the freedom of the Internet" without him.[28]

Reddit announcement

In a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" discussion held on January 10, several organizers announced the action and fielded user questions "about Aaron and a protest we're organizing on 02/11 in his honor". Those participating were Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing; Brian Knappenberger, who made the films The Internet's Own Boy, a documentary about Aaron Swartz, and We Are Legion, a film about the hacker group "Anonymous"; David Segal, co-founder of Demand Progress; Peter Eckersley of EFF; and Sina Khanifar, website developer for "The Day we Fight Back" and several other activist projects. Doctorow and Eckersley indicated they had been close friends of Swartz.

Comparing the opposition to surveillance to the previous defeat of SOPA, in which Demand Progress and Aaron Swartz had been deeply involved, the organizers called for a month of activities culminating in the February 11 "day of action".[29][30]

Inspiration from Aaron Swartz

Main article: Aaron Swartz
Aaron Swartz

Aaron Swartz was an American activist who founded the online group Demand Progress, known for its campaign against the Stop Online Piracy Act. Swartz, a fellow at Harvard, was arrested by MIT police after systematically downloading academic journal articles from JSTOR.[31][32]

After US Attorney Angela Corey charged Aaron Swartz with multiple felonies, he faced a potential penalty of 35 years confinement in a federal penitentiary.[33] On January 11 2013, two days after the prosecution denied his lawyer's second offer of a plea bargain, Swartz was found dead, having hanged himself. [18][34] Many commentators viewed the prosecution, which would have imposed a devastating prison term for accessing information in bulk rather than one article at a time, as 'bullying' that ultimately lead to Swartz's death.[35][36][37]

February 11, 2014, the planned day of protest, falls one month after the first year anniversary of the death of Aaron Swartz.[3][4][5] [38][39][40]

Swartz's brother, Noah Swartz, is "actively organizing" the The Day We Fight Back.[28]

David Segal said in a statement,

Today the greatest threat to a free Internet, and broader free society, is the National Security Agency's mass spying regime. If Aaron were alive he'd be on the front lines, fighting back against these practices that undermine our ability to engage with each other as genuinely free human beings.[41][42]

In the clip, Swartz comments on mass surveillance,

It is shocking to think that the accountability is so lax that they don't even have sort of basic statistics about how big the spying programme is. If the answer is, 'Oh, we're spying on so many people we can't possibly even count them,' then that's an awful lot of people." Five months after Swartz's death, the scale of a vast global surveillance program would be revealed in great detail through the release of top-secret NSA documents by Edward Snowden.[27] The film follows director Brian Knappenberger's recent op-ed documentary for the New York Times called "Why Care About the NSA?".[43]

Coalition members

The Guardian observed that supporters included unlikely bedfellows, citing backing from both American Civil Liberties Union and the "very conservative" FreedomWorks.[44] The protest also has the support of US National Libertarian Party and the Australian Greens.[45][46][47]

The Day We Fight Back supporters are a "broad coalition of activist groups, companies, and online platforms" supporting The Day We Fight Back protest against global surveillance.[48] Political parties supporting the protest include include the US National Libertarian Party, the Australian Greens, the Pirate Party of Sweden, and Ron Paul's Campaign for Liberty.[49][50][51][52] Activists groups supporting the protests include the EFF, the ACLU, Freedomworks,[53], Greenpeace, Demand Progress, Human Rights Watch, Restore the Fourth, and Amnesty International.[54] Websites supporting the protest included Reddit,[55] Tumblr,[56] Wikia, Mozilla and Facebook.

References

  1. ^ http://www.tomsguide.com/us/day-fight-back,news-18296.html
  2. ^ a b c Hattem, Julian. ""The idea is to really harness the outrage of the Internet community in speaking out in one big voice on Feb. 11," said Rainey Reitman, the director of activism at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/197859-thousands-of-sites-to-protest-nsa-spying#ixzz2sxBGnYy9 Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook". The Hill. The Hill. Retrieved February 10, 2014. {{cite web}}: External link in |title= (help)
  3. ^ a b c d e Gross, Grant (January 10, 2014). "Advocacy groups plan day of protest against NSA surveillance". PC World. Retrieved January 14, 2014.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Rucke, Katie (January 14, 2014). "Activists Announce Day To 'Fight Back' Against NSA". MintPress News. Retrieved January 14, 2014.
  5. ^ a b c d e f Brown, Eric (January 14, 2014). "Reddit, Mozilla And Others To Protest NSA Spying, Honor Aaron Swartz On 'The Day We Fight Back'". International Business Times. Retrieved January 14, 2014.
  6. ^ Yakowicz, Will (February 3, 2014). "Internet Activists Are Rallying Businesses to Protest NSA Spying". Inc.com.
  7. ^ https://thedaywefightback.org/
  8. ^ http://www.valuewalk.com/2014/02/data-spying-feb-11-to-become-the-day-we-fight-back/
  9. ^ http://www.carbonated.tv/news/february-11-the-day-we-fight-back-against-nsa-spying
  10. ^ Wagstaff, Keith. "Reddit, Tumblr and More Protest NSA With 'Day We Fight Back'". NBC News. Retrieved February 10, 2014.
  11. ^ Gilmore, Dan. "Get ready: the day we fight back against mass surveillance is coming". Guardian. Retrieved February 9, 2014.
  12. ^ a b Gross, Grant. "More than 4,000 groups sign up to protest the NSA". PCWorld. Retrieved February 10, 2014.
  13. ^ http://swampland.time.com/2014/02/10/the-day-we-fight-back-protests-nsa-surveillance/
  14. ^ Kleinman, Alexis. "Feb. 11 Is 'The Day We Fight Back' Against NSA Surveillance". HuffPo. Huffington Post. Retrieved February 10, 2014.
  15. ^ Swartz, Jon. "Tech giants team up in anti-snooping effort". USA Today. Retrieved February 11, 2014.
  16. ^ Voltz, Dustin. "Coalition of Google, Facebook, and Other Tech Giants Join Mass NSA Protest". National Journal. Retrieved February 11, 2014.
  17. ^ Tag internettet tilbage! 11. februar 2014 - Demonstration mod masseovervågning
  18. ^ a b c A List of Events Happening on The Day We Fight Back Cite error: The named reference "autogenerated1" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  19. ^ http://taginternettettilbage.nu/pressemeddelelse.pdf
  20. ^ The Day We Fight Back Against Mass Surveillance | Restore The Fourth San Francisco Bay Area
  21. ^ "AT&T Whistle-Blower's Evidence". Wired. May 17, 2006. Retrieved February 27, 2009.
  22. ^ Bamford, James (March 15, 2012). "The NSA Is Building the Country's Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)". Wired (magazine). Retrieved April 23, 2012. {{cite news}}: |last= has generic name (help); External link in |last= (help)
  23. ^ Stockholm: Demonstrera med oss på The Day We Fight Back « Piratpartiet Stockholm
  24. ^ graz [CryptoParty Austria]
  25. ^ The Day We Fight Back Against Mass Surveillance | KBOO
  26. ^ Zelman, Joanna (January 11, 2014). "Aaron Swartz Documentary Clip Reveals Activist's Thoughts On NSA, Pushes Day Of Action". The Huffington Post. Retrieved January 15, 2014.
  27. ^ a b Pengelly, Martin (January 11, 2014). "Hacking of MIT website marks first anniversary of Aaron Swartz's death". The Guardian. Retrieved January 15, 2014.
  28. ^ a b Goodman, Amy (January 26, 2014). "Aaron Swartz: The life we lost and the day we fight back". Athens News.
  29. ^ Doctorow, Cory; Knappenberger, Brian; Eckersley, Peter; Segal, David (January 10, 2014). "Aaron Swartz passed away a year ago tomorrow. We are Cory Doctorow, Brian Knappenberger, Peter Eckersley (EFF), and David Segal (Demand Progress) here to talk about Aaron and a protest we're organizing on 02/11 in his honor. Ask us anything". Reddit.com.
  30. ^ Wolfgang, Ben. "Obama faces 'day of action' to protest NSA reforms". Washington Times. Retrieved February 10, 2014.
  31. ^ Gerstein, Josh (July 22, 2011). "MIT also pressing charges against hacking suspect". Politico. [Swartz's] alleged use of MIT facilities and Web connections to access the JSTOR database ... resulted in two state felony charges for breaking into a 'depository' and breaking & entering in the daytime, according to local prosecutors.
  32. ^ Commonwealth v. Swartz, 11-52CR73 & 11-52CR75, MIT Police Incident Report 11-351 (Mass. Dist. Ct. nolle prosequi Dec. 16, 2011) ("Captain [A.P.] and Special Agent Pickett were able to apprehend the suspect at 24 Lee Street.... He was arrested for two counts of Breaking and Entering in the daytime with the intent to commit a felony....").
  33. ^ Cite error: The named reference SwartzAaronPR was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  34. ^ "Aaron Swartz, Tech Prodigy and Internet Activist, Is Dead at 26". Time. Retrieved January 13, 2013.
  35. ^ Lessig, Lawrence (January 12, 2013). "Prosecutor as bully". Lessig Blog, v2. Retrieved January 12, 2013.
  36. ^ Schwartz, John (January 12, 2013). "Internet Activist, a Creator of RSS, Is Dead at 26, Apparently a Suicide". The New York Times. Retrieved January 13, 2013.
  37. ^ Landry, Lauren (January 11, 2014). "Anonymous Hacks MIT Website in Memory of Aaron Swartz, Announces 'The Day We Fight Back'". BostInno. Streetwise Media.
  38. ^ MacFarquhar, Larissa (March 11, 2013). "Requiem for a dream: The tragedy of Aaron Swartz". The New Yorker. [Swartz] wrote a script that instructed his computer to download articles continuously, something that was forbidden by JSTOR's terms of service....  He spoofed the computer's address....  This happened several times.  MIT traced the requests to his laptop, which he had hidden in an unlocked closet.
  39. ^ Peters, Justin (February 7, 2013). "The Idealist: Aaron Swartz wanted to save the world. Why couldn't he save himself?". Slate. p. 6. The superseding indictment ... claimed that Swartz had 'contrived to break into a restricted-access wiring closet at MIT.'  But the closet door had been unlocked—and remained unlocked even after the university and authorities were aware that someone had been in there trying to access the school's network.
  40. ^ "Co-founder of Reddit Aaron Swartz found dead". CBS News. January 12, 2013. Archived from the original on January 13, 2013. Retrieved January 12, 2013.
  41. ^ Pangburn, D.J. (January 13, 2014). "Internet Activists Look Back at Aaron Swartz's Life as 'The Day We Fight Back' Approaches". Vice. Motherboard. Retrieved January 15, 2014.
  42. ^ "Privacy advocates announce day of protest against NSA spying". Help Net Security. January 13, 2014. Retrieved January 15, 2014.
  43. ^ Knappenberger, Brian (November 25, 2013). "'Why Care About the N.S.A.?". The New York Times. The Opinion Pages. Retrieved January 21, 2014.
  44. ^ Get ready: the day we fight back against mass surveillance is coming | Dan Gillmor | Comment is free | theguardian.com
  45. ^ Surveillance Protestors Take 'USA Freedom Act' Demonstration Online - Government - Bel Air, MD Patch
  46. ^ Mass protests planned for Tues over NSA surveillance | Fox News
  47. ^ http://www.itnews.com.au/News/371977,greens-go-black-to-fight-online-surveillance.aspx
  48. ^ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/miles-mogulescu/it-can-happen-again-cover_b_4761481.html
  49. ^ Surveillance Protestors Take 'USA Freedom Act' Demonstration Online - Government - Bel Air, MD Patch
  50. ^ Mass protests planned for Tues over NSA surveillance | Fox News
  51. ^ http://www.itnews.com.au/News/371977,greens-go-black-to-fight-online-surveillance.aspx
  52. ^ http://www.tomsguide.com/us/day-fight-back,news-18296.html
  53. ^ http://www.tomsguide.com/us/day-fight-back,news-18296.html
  54. ^ http://www.tomsguide.com/us/day-fight-back,news-18296.html
  55. ^ http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/reddit-tumblr-more-protest-nsa-day-we-fight-back-n26416
  56. ^ http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/reddit-tumblr-more-protest-nsa-day-we-fight-back-n26416

References

[1]

  1. ^ US Attorney's Office District of Massachusetts (July 19, 2011). "Alleged Hacker Charged With Stealing Over Four Million Documents from MIT Network". Press release. Retrieved January 17, 2013.

See also

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=The_Day_We_Fight_Back&oldid=594921489"