[yenoham]

When articles like this are submitted to HN, can we have a discussion on what us as individuals can actually do (if anything)?

I'd rather drop 100 comments on general FEELING towards the news, for 1 or 2 comments suggesting 'Let's create a campaign site' or 'There is nothing we can do, lets just sit here in silence'

Edit: For what it's worth my ONLY suggestion is that a campaign site similar to that for SOPA, etc. is put together - ideally on GitHub or similar so it can be rapidly put together.

[espeed]

Google was founded on the principle of "Don't be evil", it has the power and influence to effect change, and it helped lead the charge against SOPA. Why is Google so silent now?

"He who has the ability to act on an injustice, but who stands idly by, is just as guilty as he who holds the knife."

How Google handles this will be its defining moment. This is could be an opportunity for Google to win the world over by showing it truly stands on its principles, or it could be its downfall, destroying its credibility, losing the trust of its users.

Maybe Google is working behind the scenes putting a game plan together, or maybe it's getting something out of the situation -- let's hope it's the former. Like Eisenhower said, "A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."

[ajays]

"Dear Google, please save us!"

You might as well have said, "Dear God, please save us!"

Sorry, but you won't be saved by any corporate entity; they're in bed with the surveillance state anyways. It is people like us, yes, you included, who have to take up the baton and run with it.

Here are things you can do:

- Talk to your non-techie friends, and bring them up to speed

- Explain to them why "giving up rights for temporary safety" doesn't work

- Tell them why this sort of surveillance is against the core democratic principles this country was founded on

- Suggest to them that they should vote out any politician who supports such policies. In the end, it is the Congress' job to keep checks and balances; and they've failed miserably. Time for all of them to go.

[espeed]

You've mistaken me for someone else.

Corporations hold more influence with Congress than voters. Google has enormous power, but it lives and dies by its users. If we hold Google accountable to the point it has to act, its lead could trigger a movement among the Internet giants, and that's a mighty big lever.

[dragonwriter]

> The truth of the matter is, corporations hold more influence with Congress than voters.

Corporations are convenient fictions. The truth of the matter is individuals with lots of money and connections hold more influence with Congress individuals without lots of money and connections.

[espeed]

Last year Google spent $18,220,000 lobbying Congress -- #8 on the top spenders list (http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2012&index...). That's not fiction, but it's a drop in Google's coffers.

And the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Elec...) removed the ban which prevented corporations from using their treasury funds for direct advocacy.

[res0nat0r]

Google's mission statement is: to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

It isn't to fall on it's sword and risk the entirety of the company fighting the US government on principale. I'd argue that doing that putting out of work tens of thousands of people in the worst case would "be evil".

http://www.google.com/about/

[dragonwriter]

I didn't say corporate lobbying was a fiction, I said corporations as independent entities are a convenient fiction; corporations are tools through which individuals exercise power, not real entities that have power of their own.

[uptown]

'Google was founded on the principle of "Don't be evil"'

I wish people would stop quoting this. It means nothing, and is not binding in any way. It sounded good, and it was a great marketing slogan - but it means absolutely nothing in reality.

[espeed]

"Don't be evil. We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served — as shareholders and in all other ways — by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains" -- Google's 2004 IPO Prospectus (http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~hal/Courses/StratTech09/...).

Binding or not, it's a social contract, and it could mean the world if Google stands by it.

[Terretta]

On the contrary, it lets Google use Crockford's jslint.

[dredmorbius]

"Don't be evil" wasn't a founding principle, but one suggested by an engineer early in the company's history:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_be_evil

I've got my own very grave reservations about the company, but it has done some good stuff. I'm hoping we'll hear from them eventually. Truth is, much of The System is the way it is because the various participants have one another by the balls.

[xhrpost]

> Why is Google so silent now?

Because they are legally required to be silent. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732394990457853...

[zby]

There is this annual event "Freedom not Fear" - which is about fighting the Big Brother - and this year a huge coalition (http://blog.freiheitstattangst.de/bundnispartner-2013/) in Germany and Austria plan demonstrations for the September 7, and other countries will join (Poland and Czech Republic are confirmed): http://wiki.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/Freedom_Not_Fear_2013...

On September 27-30 in Brussels there will be workshops and hearings with MEPs: https://wiki.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/Freedom_Not_Fear_201...

Organize a local event - add it to the list - don't be afraid that it is small, even if not many people come locally - you'll be a part of a global crowd.

Twitter hashtag: #fnf13 IRC: #fnf PirateIRC (irc.piratpartiet.se / irc.piraattipuolue.fi / irc.pirateparty.org.uk)

[nwh]

I don't really see a solution, and I'm assuming that nobody else does really. Citizens and foreigners (like me) have equally little power over what their governments do, just a mild decision between two parties come election time. The general population seems to be apathetic about it all, I don't think I know a single person who has any opinion other than the tired "nothing to hide" line.

[davidw]

> I don't really see a solution, and I'm assuming that nobody else does really

Bullshit.

There's plenty ordinary people can do. Look at the results here:

http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/24/19658896-hou...

That's close enough that the right application of pressure, work and money would have made a difference. Perhaps in the Senate it would take other numbers, but no one said it'd be easy.

Indeed, it's not. It'll take hard work, time, and money.

Comments like yours are a complete and total waste of time - they accomplish nothing other than to suck energy out of people who might otherwise do something. I helped to get a law changed - every so slightly - in Italy, which is not an easy place to do politics. Tons of people basically laughed at me for even trying, but here it is: http://www.governo.it/Notizie/Presidenza/dettaglio.asp?d=690... - it's imperfect, but it's progress, at least.

I'm not much of a fan of political articles like these on this site, but this poster at least has the right idea. Instead of hyperbolic, sophomoric babbling about how the US is "a terrorist state" he's asking "what can we DO?". That's the right first step.

In terms of the 'nothing to hide' line, turn the thing on its head: if Snowden had that kind of access, think how many other people there are who could be paid to spy for the Chinese, Russians, or simply competing US companies. What if politicians lean on them to spy on ... [insert some movement the individual identifies with]. With very little oversight, it seems. You can't trust people when there are no checks and balances.

[padobson]

Sounds like we need a campaign against the "Nothing to hide" line. You could probably point out to them that there are so many laws now, they probably broke 10 of them before they left for work in the morning.

[dwiel]

The path that seems to have worked best for me is to start with the argument that you can't have a democracy if the incumbent can spy on the opposing candidates to help dig dirt and that this data can and will be used for non-terrorist uses. The typical response is that they trust that they wont use it for non terrorist uses, to which I reply with the sharing of data between NSA and the DEA to arrest people as well as now the Miranda case.

[padobson]

That could work in a full conversation, but it needs to be packaged up more for our sound-byte/online-comments/tweet culture. You could circulate a hashtag on twitter like #things2hide to get popular conversation about it going.

[lazyjones]

We need more "leaks", especially of the kind that shows the politicians who repeat the "nothing to hide" line, that they themselves have plenty of things to hide ... So perhaps it's time to start digging through the private lives of some politicians.

[aninhumer]

One technique would be attaching typical "Nothing to hide" rhetoric to images/stories of people suffering as a result of surveillance?

In addition to simply exposing these events, it also associates their own rhetoric with abuses.

[crpatino]

I propose the last verse of Martin Niemoller's poem: "Then they came after me..."

It is as powerful a phrase as we can get!

[TeddyLondon]

Start the "Nothing to see" campaign!

[keithpeter]

"When articles like this are submitted to HN, can we have a discussion on what us as individuals can actually do (if anything)?"

I think we need to start explaining the privacy/surveillance issue and how the advent of powerful technology makes universal surveillance possible and, as others have commented, rather banal.

As one example of a possible 'hook':In the UK, there have been reports on the extent to which ordinary police officers are using the National Police Computer for purposes unrelated to police work (checking out boyfriends/girlfriends for instance). I imagine the potential for misuse is much higher with the comprehensive capturing of data from all communications. That might get people thinking.

[hyperventilator]

As a peaceful protest / 4th Amendment exercise, please consider attaching an encrypted file with EVERY email you send from now on. It's easy enough to do using TrueCrypt. It needn't be a file the recipient needs to decrypt, or keep. You needn't even remember the password. If everyone did this every time they send an email to anyone, it would flood the Internet with literally millions, then billions, of encrypted files, thereby demonstrating our resolve to maintain some level of privacy, and protecting most if not all of us "fish" in the "school" from the "sharks" who prefer to eat us one at a time (a la Edward Snowden and Ladar Levison). When fish in a massive school move together in coordinated ways, it frustrates predators. If this idea seems worthwhile PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE

This accomplishes three things. 1) It makes you familiar with encryption for when you actually need it. 2) It increases the cost of surveillance and 3) It gives you an opening to discuss the topic with non-tech friends when they ask about your gibberish attachment.