[riseup] In the waning days of Babylon and empire, what will the US government
think up next? According to numerous leaks from the intelligence
bureaucracy to the New York Times, the New Yorker, and the Wall Street
Journal, the government’s new fun toy is the ability to monitor our
social networks by tracking, in real time, the patterns of email, phone
calls, text messages, and financial transactions. This program is top
secret, so you can’t take legal action because you can’t prove the
program exists (according to the catch-22 logic of a February 19th US
Supreme Court decision).
The Clinton and Bush administrations have said the program is entirely
constitutional because it does not involve eavesdropping on the content
of our communication. Instead, it focuses on the pattern of our
relationships. In this way, individuals are not under surveillance, all
of society is. If your social movement has nothing to hide, then what
are you worried about? Plenty. This kind of map of our social networks
creates a ready made blueprint for disrupting any social movement deemed
to be a threat. In many ways, the government knows more about how we
organize than we do. This issue is important to all organizers, because
much of the world’s email is routed through the US.
So, what can we do about it? For starters, get everyone you know to
start using an email provider that uses StartTLS. For email, this is the
only thing that can protect against the surveillance of our social
networks. For a list of StartTLS providers besides riseup see:http://help.riseup.net/security/measures/#use_secure_email_providers
What about phone calls, internet chat, and social networking sites?
Riseup birds don’t have all the answers, but we are working on it. One
thing we know, privacy and security are not solved by personal
solutions. If we want security, it will take a collective response and a
collective commitment to building alternative communication infrastructure.
For more information, see:
http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB120511973377523845.html
"NSA’s Domestic Spying Grows As Agency Sweeps Up Data" by Siobhan Gorman.
The Wall Street Journal, March 10, 2008.
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/05/29/060529ta_talk_hersh
"Listening In" by Seymour Hersh. The New Yorker, May 29, 2006.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm
"NSA has massive database of Americans‘ phone calls" by Leslie Cauley.
USA Today, May 10, 2006.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jyusZ2V1ACKGV2iJuGVmuPUERi_QD8UTICG00
"Court Rejects ACLU Challenge to Wiretaps." Associated Press, February
19, 2008.
Source: Email
