Imagine if Facebook, Google and Twitter built a privacy-killing surveillance machine to help the federal government spy on us.
If Congress passes the Cybersecurity Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) this week (the same CISPA that withered in Congress last year), we’ll be one step closer to that nightmare.
We’ve got to convince Congress to vote “NO” on CISPA. Here’s how you can help:
- Pick up the phone.
- Call your representative.
- Urge a “NO” vote on CISPA.
Let’s get back to Facebook, Google and Twitter. Existing laws make it illegal for these and other online companies to share our personal information with the federal government without our consent or a search warrant.
But CISPA would obliterate our privacy laws. This means that Facebook could freely disclose your private messages, status updates, photos, searches, likes — even your location — to the National Security Agency or the Department of Homeland Security.
Google could send the government your email, your search history and more. If this bill passes, the federal government will have a surveillance system courtesy of the private companies that collect and hold our electronic information.
Right now we have the right to sue Facebook or Google for compromising our online privacy. CISPA would end all that — and we would no longer be able to do anything online without fear of being spied on.
CISPA is the worst bill facing the open Internet since SOPA — and it’s arguably even worse than that. So we must stand up for our online rights. We can’t simply hope that Congress does the right thing.
Take a moment right now to call your representative and urge a “NO” vote on CISPA.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
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