If all these powerful companies agree, in an unprecedented show of unanimity, that this is an important problem, then Snowden is ipso facto a hero for bringing it to our attention.

The curious thing is, I feel the linkage works in the other direction too. If Snowden had been caught and was now having his brains scrambled by solitary confinement in some secret prison, these companies would have been at least slightly more reluctant to issue such a statement, because it would have seemed to be espousing the cause of someone people were hearing described on the news as a criminal.

Snowden made his disclosures much more effective by escaping.

And yes, getting imprisoned makes you less credible in the eyes of the public; people love a winner. :/

On the other hand, it frustrates me that the tipping point for how Snowden's legacy will be viewed is action by a set of corporations, and not action by elected officials, the media, or an informed public...

Democracy is effectively dead; who could we have voted for that would not have done these things if not Obama?

The United States is an oligarchy, just as the Internet has become feudal. Sometimes we'll agree with the decisions of the oligarchs; other times we won't.

But that isn't the question. Should we live in an oligarchy?

(Personally, I'm less optimistic that this is any sort of "tipping point." Humans rarely change their minds, and Snowden became a traitorous footnote to most people a long time ago.)

Everything these companies say is informed by discussion in the media, among the public, and, yes, with elected officials. The line you want to draw is extremely fuzzy at best in reality.

I have read that Genghis Khan's original plan after conquering China was to raze the farming villages to provide more pasture for horses (and the Mongols that horse populations supported). Some bureaucrats pointed out to him that he could personally do better by taxing the Chinese farmers. And he sold out the Mongols to do it, which worked out great for him and the millions of peasants he didn't kill.

Do we count that as action by the peasants, who held essentially zero formal power, or by the mandarins, who could never have afforded to pay for the deal themselves?

But the CEO's also have a moral obligation to lead. Frankly, they have this obligation even if its not in the financial (narrow) interest of their company. Although what we are clearly seeing here is the 'existential' threat not only to their business models, but that <history> will view them as compllicit in a bad thing, imho.

You take a disenfranchised minority, pull it all together to collaborate, give it some money... and now you've got an enfranchised minority (usually called a Political Action Committee.) Make that source of money self-sustaining, though, and you've got the definition of a (perhaps not-for-profit) corporation.

Given this is the United States Military waging an espionage offensive on domestic soil (as well as internationally), I regard it as a brave effort for anyone at any of these companies to stand up and push back.

Government surveillance has become a political wedge issue, similar to abortion. No one likes it or encourages it but people have strong emotions on both sides. Snowden is deserving of credit, he may have helped to spark another enduring and polarizing american social debate. It's unfortunate that he won't be around for the resulting legal process.

It's worth noting that the modern surveillance state didn't begin when Edward Snowden stepped in front of a camera for the first time. Where were these responsible tech giants five or ten years ago? When everyone in the country was flipping the heck out over 9/11, some of these companies went along with the crowd and gave the government access to everything. Their points are very valid, more government transparency and accountability is always good. But courage is about doing the thing when it's hard, not when it's easy. It's good to see movement in the right direction but it would have been nice if things had gotten to this point sooner. Then maybe Snowden would still be sleeping in his own bed.

I was born during the Cold War and I don't see it that way. In fact, I think you have it precisely backwards.

I remember being alive when the USSR and East Germany were going concerns, and those countries seemed so horrible -- the USA really was on what any sane person (by my definition) would describe as the right side of that struggle.

Living under constant surveillance, scared to speak out even in private, corruption and bad pretense in place of the rule of law? Those things were horrible, and living under such a regime sounded unimaginably awful.

Fast forward some decades and here comes Snowden. That shit really resonated with me and virtually all friends of my age (39).

America is becoming that kind of place. Most of us had a creepy feeling that was happening after the G. W. Bush debacle, but Snowden proved it.

It's the same fucking fight, man: the fight for freedom. The fight for human rights and a non-dystopian future for our children.

The Cold War resonates, but in exactly the opposite of what you describe. We've got all that shit now: hyper-surveillance, secret and therefore meaningless 'laws', kidnapping, torture, America has fucking gulags now. The difference between us and East Germany is now mainly a matter of scale. But as Snowden showed, we were scaling up pretty fucking fast.

Snowden blew the lid off of it, he exposed the massive scale of it, and then he was literally running for his fucking life like some kind of Jason Bourne figure. He had a massive, ruthless security apparatus chasing him, willing do who knows what, and if they caught him it meant he was going to be tortured in solitary confinement for the rest of his life like Bradley Manning.

Nobody in their right mind would begrudge him from going any fucking place he had to in order to escape that.

And to my Cold War-shaped mind, it is impossible to think of him as anything other than a whistleblower that this country badly, badly needed.

The GP's question is predicated on the assumption that people have not been paying attention to the creep toward tyranny that these programs have brought for years... but the fact is that not only have people been paying attention; there has been a decades long effort to shield mainstream awareness of this. Media has been more than just complicit in MISO (PSyOP) activities to marginalize anyone who has been discussing these topics.

Christ, Hollywood has been out-right guilty of running PR for the MIC bastards for 30 years now.

There is a very clear crew responsible for this as well.

The CIA built by GHW Bush and his cabal of war/drug profiteers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDFHd5eEzw

You owe it to yourself to watch that 39 minutes.

exactly.

Imagine this was 1980 and the issue at hand was apartheid.

Jelly-fish CEOs print an open letter in newspapers, asking governments to improve race relations because unhappy black folk don't want to buy their products.

Not once is Nelson Mandela mentioned in the letter, so out of the public eye, his years in prison continue.

Are we supposed to be impressed with this?

I am a Russian American and I see this the other way around. The fact that Snowden had to escape to Russia (of all places!) to maintain his freedom is an indictment of the sorry state of affairs in the U.S. Traditionally the U.S. has been a beacon of hope for political prisoners and has a proud history of shielding dissidents. Just think of it -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Yelena Bonner, Joseph Brodsky, I mean, the list is endless!

To me (and a lot of other people whose cultural identity is tied to that era) the idea that we're now moving into a world where things are flipped upside down is incredibly weird. I really can't think of other events that cause greater cognitive dissonance. Just think of it -- political dissidents seek asylum in Russia now?! Does that not seem odd?

The Thai government have just dissolved parliament and called new elections due to protests. Can you imagine that happening in many so-called "democratic" Western states? You can't even get a crack-smoking mayor to resign these days!

Let's break this down. You'd have to:

not know the difference between Russia and the Soviet Union

not know that Russia wasn't where Snowden was trying to end up

not understand the difference between a political defector (defecting to a political system that doesn't exist anymore!) and a guy trying to evade prosecution

I don't say this very often but I don't think people are as dumb as you think they are. People who think Snowden is a traitor would feel the same if he were in Iceland or something right now.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in...

And Russia is also a dangerous place to be gay. Snowden in Russia looks like politics on the part of Russia. I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't find out some time in the future that Russia has their own surveillance program that was similar to ours.

His going there made no statement that Russia was free or good just the for him personally it was possibly the safest move at that time.

I would also argue that his publicly speaking out on the abuses in the US, UK etc. may in the long term do far more to improve the freedoms in Russia by improving the acceptable international standards from where they are slipping to than if he had never leaked.

Politicians and even athletes who go to the Olympics have a greater responsibility to speak publicly against some of Russia's policies than a whistleblower on the run.

Realistically, China and Russia are the only nations powerful enough to stand up to the USA.

[1]: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/26/obama-muslim_n_1706...

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4175089/

By adding noise to the argument, you are hurting Snowden's case. People are simply going to conclude that Snowden must be wrong people because people who believe in him are wrong. The fact is that most people live busy lives and actually don't spend much time thinking about Snowden. I think his 15 minutes of fame are up. I don't see him mentioned in the news, except HN, where the story will never die.

Your post is absolutely right, and the people responding to you really fail to capture the dynamic existing in American society. The nature of the American public is that it is willing to give the government the benefit of the doubt, but will view with intense skepticism those associated with Russia or China. That's the legacy of the Cold War.

This is, incidentally, why you see so much support for surveillance in the first place. People aren't intentionally trying to bring about some sort of futuristic dystopia. But the surveillance apparatus has been in place for most of the post century, and has saw America through the Cold War. Politicians of a certain age and temperament see the latest programs as simply adapting the apparatus to changing technology, not fundamentally increasing its scope or invasiveness.

Half of the people in this country are deluding themselves just like you.

Today, we have rumors and gossip about NSA analysts "training" on Obama's comms in the early '00s. During the Cold War, the FBI brazenly monitored and transcribed all calls to various public figures and then blackmailed them: see Martin Luther King.

A phone tap in the 1950s would require recording and someone listening to it, would it not? How many people could the NSA employ to listen to conversations? Millions?

Either way, just because they have been doing disgusting things for so long does not make it something we should stop getting upset about.

I was born during the cold war.

I remember the outrage when it was found that the East German secret police (the Stasi) had files on 1/3 of the population of East Germany.

I remember the commentators telling us how no one in the Western, Free world would ever stand for it, and how it could never happen.

(i) when the government failed to give Bradley Manning due process, they forfeited the moral right to criticize Snowden for fleeing. Daniel Ellsberg is in a better position to comment on this than just about anyone else; here's what he said (http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-07-07/opinions/40427... ):

"Yet when I surrendered to arrest in Boston, having given out my last copies of the papers the night before, I was released on personal recognizance bond the same day. Later, when my charges were increased from the original three counts to 12, carrying a possible 115-year sentence, my bond was increased to $50,000. But for the whole two years I was under indictment, I was free to speak to the media and at rallies and public lectures. I was, after all, part of a movement against an ongoing war. Helping to end that war was my preeminent concern. I couldn’t have done that abroad, and leaving the country never entered my mind.

There is no chance that experience could be reproduced today, let alone that a trial could be terminated by the revelation of White House actions against a defendant that were clearly criminal in Richard Nixon’s era — and figured in his resignation in the face of impeachment — but are today all regarded as legal (including an attempt to 'incapacitate me totally').

I hope Snowden’s revelations will spark a movement to rescue our democracy, but he could not be part of that movement had he stayed here. There is zero chance that he would be allowed out on bail if he returned now and close to no chance that, had he not left the country, he would have been granted bail. Instead, he would be in a prison cell like Bradley Manning, incommunicado.

He would almost certainly be confined in total isolation, even longer than the more than eight months Manning suffered during his three years of imprisonment before his trial began recently. The United Nations Special Rapporteur for Torture described Manning’s conditions as 'cruel, inhuman and degrading.' (That realistic prospect, by itself, is grounds for most countries granting Snowden asylum, if they could withstand bullying and bribery from the United States.)

Snowden believes that he has done nothing wrong. I agree wholeheartedly. More than 40 years after my unauthorized disclosure of the Pentagon Papers, such leaks remain the lifeblood of a free press and our republic. One lesson of the Pentagon Papers and Snowden’s leaks is simple: secrecy corrupts, just as power corrupts."

(ii) when they forced down the Bolivian presidential plane, they forfeited the moral right to criticize Snowden for staying in Russia.

A human product that lets its product owner tip the scales and control its future? Puke. Double puke.

The sooner this privacy debate ends for them the better. I'd rather the debate continue and we develop better technology and opinions around ownership of our own actions and lives so we harden ourselves from parasitism, instead of cheering when one of our parasites takes out another.

These companies are simply grand-standing to further their own ambition.

They don't care what happens to Snowden, they deny even his very existence.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/how-nsa-mass-surveilla...

I agree that for the most part, geeks at these companies are as opposed to surveillance as people outside - probably even more so. However, usually, it's business impact that turns private opinion into official corporate policy.

These companies have staked out a position, off the back of his endeavors, yet lack the courage and conviction to fully support him.

It makes me cringe to see Larry Page, Marissa Mayer et al posting weasel words on a web-site, as though they are champions of the people.

In the week that Nelson Mandela passed away, the contrast between giants and dwarves could not be clearer.

I don't really mind it as long as it really works, and it's the outcome I wanted to see anyway, but I think it should be seen for what it really is. If this was really about principles, they would've done something about it years ago, not after they see their financials or relationships overseas drop because of it.

I wouldn't say that. With news spreading about the NSA having access to your Google data, including your Gmail, people start to worry, and more importantly, they start to look towards alternatives. Google is getting a pretty bad reputation these days when it comes to user privacy, and this isn't helping their cause. This obviously affects their bottom line, and so they're looking for change.

These are the same companies that stand shoulder to shoulder with the same US government when it comes to putting immense pressure on foreign governments to give up their civil rights protections when it comes to privacy.

I can only guess as to their motives, but "high principle" definitely isn't one of them.

Can you cite examples?

That makes it pretty clear to me why this campaign is being orchestrated by the companies involved.

NOt that i disagree, but I do think if other companies (eg, apple, intel) signed off on this it would remove the stigma of self-dealing. If the "tech industry" was more broadly represented (and included say, Stanford & MIT) again this would be a much more powerful statement. But the reality, is that SV lives off of the governmnet in many indirect ways (nasa, defense, NSF grants, etc) and while they may be principled...well, I sure you get the idea. They're not that principled.

Apple's logo appear at the bottom of "An open letter to Washington".

We'd known about strange telecommunication interception by governments for years[1] but Snowden's disclosures and the following saga brought it to the attention of the world by providing a theatrical backdrop for the media to start using. Now it's something that normal people know about, not just techies.

Regulating government surveillance is the issue these companies are best positioned to support. If they'd explicitly mentioned Snowden, the discussion could quickly be derailed.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A and many more

Its such a complex issue, I think, for this industry; Strive to make incredible technologies, hope they are used for good.

Do you have any thoughts on this?

I wonder, empirically, to what degree this whole problem shows that these companies are even powerful. I think some observers have concluded, after the revelations about internal NSA documents claiming to be able to monitor internal server-to-server communications in the big tech companies, that the companies are weak. It also appears to be beyond dispute that some NSA practices were known in the industry for a long time but the companies didn't lobby about those directly to Congress.

in an unprecedented show of unanimity

I think these tech companies, in various combinations, have lobbied in concert before. How long those combinations last depends in part on how unified their interests really are when the details of regulations are drafted. The current call to action is "we hereby call on governments to endorse the following principles and enact reforms that would put these principles into action." Not all of the HN readers are unanimous even on the broad outlines of the principles, as the comments kindly submitted below your comment show, and anyone familiar with national government legislative and regulatory processes knows that the devil is in the details, as one webpage of bullet point policy goals gets changed into dozens of pages of national laws, international treaties, and administrative regulations.

All that said, I fully agree that it is very significant that the companies in the industry are speaking up, and I think that will do a lot to move legislative and regulatory reform of NSA surveillance programs. I agree with other commenters to your comment that it will be a good idea to help consumers have reliable products and services to ensure their own privacy on an individual basis and to regulate how private business corporations gather data on Internet users as well.

Manning disclosed that US military was killing civilians basically for fun [1], and yet no people were protesting on the streets (not in large numbers, at least)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogFZlRiTHuw

The fact of the matter is: We have clearly seen that the governments have been lying to us the whole time.

And of course they will ultimately make some promises.

But it's too late for promises. Nobody trusts the governments anymore. Their degree of corruption is painfully obvious.

As long as there are agencies like the NSA/CIA with the insane budgets we give them, the abuse will continue (best case: it will be slowed down temporarily).

1. Limiting Corporations’ Authority to Collect Users’ Information

Corporations should codify sensible limitations on their ability to collect and disclose user data that balance their need for the data in limited circumstances, users’ reasonable privacy interests, and the impact on trust in the Internet. In addition, corporations should limit surveillance to specific, known users for lawful purposes, and should not undertake bulk data collection of Internet communications.

2 Oversight and Accountability

Corporations seeking to collect or compel the production of information should do so under a clear legal framework in which corporations are subject to strong checks and balances. Reviewing courts should be independent and include an adversarial process, and corporations should allow important rulings of law to be made public in a timely manner so that the courts are accountable to an informed citizenry.

3 Transparency About Corporations collecting practices

Transparency is essential to a debate over corporations’ surveillance powers and the scope of programs that are administered under those powers. Corporations should publish the number and nature of collected user information.

4 Respecting the Free Flow of Information

The ability of data to flow or be accessed across borders is essential to a robust 21st century global economy. Corporations should not collect user information in other countries with the intent of circumventing the local laws that limit user data collection.

The issue with the government is that you are tracked by default, on your mobile phone and on your online activity. You cannot opt out.

That hasn't exactly stopped them from holding detainees in Guantanamo with no charges for years, and no hope of release.

If the government gets the wrong idea about you, they may bust your door down and run in with guns drawn, then shoot you because they think you're reaching for a gun.

While I'm concerned about what Google or Facebook will do with my information, the biggest concern (and the one expressed here) is that the government will demand or snoop it from them, and act on it in one of the ways described above.

In the uk and the us at least this is no longer true. I they call you a terrorist (with or without proof) the normal laws don't apply. They are also collecting everything we do and storing it for as long as technically possible, quite soon that will be forever.

Government agencies are the bigger problem at the present moment in time, not corporations.

This statement is factually incorrect. The government is allowed to hold you for however long they want, without trial, as long as they call you "terrorist". www.ndaa2012.us

Or beyond that, there's all the sharing buttons, Google Web Fonts, hosted JavaScript libraries, and the like. If I wanted to prevent Google from being able to track me at all, I would have to avoid the vast majority of the web.

You can apply more and more extensions and filter rules to block this sort of thing. I have a variety enabled; they make it a quite a pain to surf the web, as they wind up breaking a variety of sites by blocking a little too much, and I have to sit there and selectively disable them until I find what allows the site to work.

So, effectively, you cannot opt out of corporate tracking either. If you want to, just like avoiding government surveillance, your best bet is to just disconnect from the net entirely.

https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout Its been around for a looooong time.

Primary has all the privacy-enhancing extensions turned on and tuned, so random browsing will not accrue to me.

When I hit a wall (rarely) and after consideration, decide that I really want to bypass it (even more rare), I create a new profile, do the dirty deed, and then destroy the profile.

Chrome profiles are leaky in confidence-damping ways, and the options for privacy extensions are fewer. Use Firefox.

> If you want to, just like avoiding government surveillance, your best bet is to just disconnect from the net entirely.

You can't disconnect from government surveillance, in case you did not get my point earlier. They track your phone calls even if you don't use the net. They have cameras in streets, airports, they can track your spending via credit cards, they can check where you are by locating your mobile phone position, but no company alone can do the exact same thing. The balance of power is clearly in favor of the government for surveillance, and the massive budget of the NSA is a simple proof that they are not kidding.

I dislike that you get forced to use it to opt-out, but there is little other choice.

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It’s the same misdirection tactics as talking about Facebook privacy controls – none of those controls prevents Facebook from seeing and recording it all. And whatever is recorded is probably passed on to the NSA.

But doesn't ghostery block FB, Google+, etc. by default, too?

<script type="text/javascript">window["_gaUserPrefs"] = { ioo : function() { return true; } }</script>

Couldn't a nefarious site just over-ride that later in the page-load process?

When that deal is no longer opt-in, such as when Google stored third-party cookies in Safari despite settings, or when Facebook tracked non-users across the web, it is a privacy lapse and it is fixed, they are fined by the FCC, they lose marketability etc.

The entire world didn't opt-in to NSA surveillance.

These companies can't even tell their users that their data might be shared with the NSA.

Privacy rights aren't about being against user data, it is about allowing users to choose how and when their data is used.

Google, in particular has it's digital fingerprints all over the web. Its' online reach is far greater than any other company. They even have an entire OS that potentially tracks your every action. Sure, they are not using the data they collect for nefarious purposes, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be subject to much greater scrutiny.

Just look at the quote from Larry Page on the website:

"The security of users' data is critical..."

It's not just about security, but about privacy too. Privacy and security are related but separate issues. You can have the best security in the world and continue to voraciously gobble every byte of data you can possibly capture. I don't doubt Google's commitment to security matters. But can you trust them on matters of privacy?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

These corporations, to my knowledge, have never used their data to:

* Spy on love interests

* Kill people abroad unilaterally

* Construct court cases against people

* Imprison people for victimless crimes (or any crime for that matter)

* Add me to no-fly lists

* Forcibly extract money from me to make me pay for their programs

Another one is for someone to "throw the net" and get information on several fronts (possibly including: credit report, bank info, emails, etc)

Communications is one of the few services that governments co-opt indirectly. Lockheed Martin knows it's building war jets. But here, the signatories didn't set out to build government surveillance engines, it was required of them after it became clear how useful they could be. Their response could set the tone for future actions in years to come.

It's interesting that other communications groups (e.g. cellphone co's) have not reacted in the same way, Qwest aside. You don't have to believe that each CEO is doing this on principle if you're cynically inclined, but it seems clear at least that many of their employees are in favor of it. I'm curious if it's a internet/tech/silicon valley thing, or something else.

Verizon and AT&T are a government regulated duopoly, and they love the protection racket that keeps competition out. They're one step away from being state enterprises.

Those closest to being utilities are the last entities that will want to push back against the government (eg Level3). They're the most dependent on government mood swings. These types of companies often require government permission for every action they take in terms of expanding their business.

Verizon and AT&T are government regulated, and they are a duopoly, but its not regulation that keeps competition out. The natural state of communications networks are to converge on a state of monopoly. There is infinite economics of scale in telecom, and a "winner takes all" return on capital investment. Government regulation is the only thing keeping the industry from consolidating to one carrier even faster than it's already doing.

One theory: Most of the telecos are mostly USA based companies, where as Google/Facebook/Twitter/Microsoft/Apple/Yahoo have a large amount of customers/business outside the USA.

So to some people outside the USA, it becomes "Don't use Google/Microsoft, the US Government can see what you do", which is different from US customers thinking "If you use this teleco, then your government can see what you do."

> Sincerely,

> AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter, Yahoo

and their logo appears in the listing @ the end of the page, but their logo isn't in the beginning of the page, and they don't provide a quote from their CEO nor legal counsel, per the other signing companies.

Last-minute change of heart, lukewarm support...?

If you have ever worked on something like this, you will know that merely getting these companies to agree to have their logos on the same page is a feat. They are listed in alphabetical order, and I imagine there was MUCH discussion about their relative sizes. But it can't be that Apple is disputing their logo size, since it's included at the bottom.

Update:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2013/dec13/12-08co...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/09/technology/tech-giants-iss...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/09/nsa-surveillanc...

* This summer's hailstorm was about NSA but also about them. This site obviously ignores this and shows these corps as innocent victims, which they are not.

* It's clearly too little! "Governments should reform themselves". How should they do that? There are absolutely no proposals on how to fix this on this site.

* It's clearly too late. This should have happened before Snoweden, not six months after.

This is just "let's go back to normal" propaganda, "damage control" PR. Nothing will change because of this.

So what about limits on how businesses collect information?

(Full disclosure: I currently work for one of the companies on the list.)

* we will aggressively develop and support cryptographic methods that will keep you out of peoples' business

* here are some specific legislative demands

* here's a petition users can sign

* we're making direct appeals to our users to call you all and will keep them apprised of your progress

hell, even

* here's a count of the number of people who have shared something stupid across our many social media

So many things they could be doing...

This is definitely a CYA (cover your ass) maneuver designed to mitigate the political hit these companies are taking. At the same time, these companies are acting like countries. They've formed an alliance and they're attempting to make a treaty with the governments that they happen to fall into. It will be interesting to watch the societal change as the importance of countries and nationalities decreases over the next hundred years.

Perhaps a starting point may be the rise of global political parties that can work together across multiple countries?

Did Bradley Manning get his "due process"? No? "-But.. but.. checks.. and balances!".. Who checks the checkers and balances the balancers?

If you put Stalin in power and tell him to make sure he himself behaves well, what can you expect to happen? What about politicians in a democracy? Will/can they watch their peers, or is it more likely they'll just collude in corruption?

The Appeals Courts, the Supreme Court, the executive (can pardon), and the people's ability to riot in the streets until we get our way. We certainly aren't hopeless, we just have to try a little harder.

So basically you're saying the watchers watch themselves? But this is exactly the problem I was pointing out. It's just not going to work, ever, and the US is excellent proof of that. Started with a minimal government and a strong constitution, but then.. an Empire happened.

>> We certainly aren't hopeless, we just have to try a little harder.

Not through political means though. Writing to your representatives doesn't work all that well either. Neither does voting.

No, because judges don't hear appeals to their decisions. Of course if you think the entire system is broken, then there's not much I can do to convince you.

No it doesn't. It works to the benefit of the ruling class, which, coincidentally, is the group of people who set the system up in the first place, and still control it today. Sure, its members come and go, but the power structure stays in place.

>> Sure, innocent people are mistakenly jailed

Mistakenly? -Rarely, if ever. Most of the time they know exactly what they're doing.

>> But overall the system works, and throwing your hands up in defeat

What defeat? I thought you just said the system "works"? -Where's the defeat if it's working properly and thus, everything is fine?

>> instead of trying to influence the system is certainly unhelpful. You won't start a revolution by kvetching in online comments, maybe you should try writing some letters sometime. They really do read them, and respond to them

Wow, you're so naive. Check out the other reply to my comment above, where someone said he's figured that it doesn't work. When Obama or whoever gets elected through receiving and using millions/billions of dollars of campaign contributions (ie. "bribes"), who exactly do you think he represents?

I have had poor results with both methods, though I have gained the all-important sensation of "doing something" while truly accomplishing precisely nothing tangible. In my view, the sublime difficulty is that voting, forming PACs to finance/bribe campaigns, and writing representatives are the only fully-recognized "legitimate" outlets for political discontent. These methods are absolutely ineffective in the face of money and power structures.

Even the mildest in desire and most orderly in execution of protests aren't viewed as reputable by bystanders, typically aren't covered positively by media if at all, and thus aren't effective in creating change.

At least now you know it's a waste of time and effort.

>> In my view, the sublime difficulty is that voting, forming PACs to finance/bribe campaigns, and writing representatives are the only fully-recognized "legitimate" outlets for political discontent.

Yep, that's the way the system is designed.

>> These methods are absolutely ineffective in the face of money and power structures.

Indeed they are. By design.

>> Even the mildest in desire and most orderly in execution of protests aren't viewed as reputable by bystanders, typically aren't covered positively by media if at all, and thus aren't effective in creating change.

Well, who do you think the media serves? What group of people is it that decides whether some specific TV/radio-channel is allowed to operate, and for how long? What group of people would stand to gain the most from controlling the whole mainstream media?

In our system of government, this situation is guaranteed by the appointment of the ranking members of the judiciary branch by the executive branch. This guarantees loyalty from the judiciary-- loyalty to party lines, which is settled on top of loyalty to the government itself. Next, the executive branch's government agency appointments are vetted by the legislative branch, which is accountable to the corporate branch. The corporate branch can then cycle members via the legislative branch into the government agencies which are then intended to regulate the corporate branch. This allows for high profit margins, which can be used to fund candidacies in the executive and legislative branches, securing their loyalty on top of the already-established loyalty from lobbying.

So you see, everything is perfectly checked and balanced-- against the voters having any political effect via the only legitimate outlet for their demands.

In terms of sources: http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/elizabeth-warren-warn... ; the quoted remarks by Senator Warren indicate that judicial nominees are actually not easily confirmed, and are sometimes already "captured" by corporate interest. It's very feasible that lobbyists could lobby the legislature in order to promote confirmation of judicial candidates who fit their agenda.

Aside from lobbying the legislature to affect the judiciary's appointments, the judiciary can also be directly bought and sold: http://jonathanturley.org/2013/06/02/its-all-about-the-judge... ; most relevantly: “According to a recent investigation by the Center for Public Integrity, “conservative foundations, multinational oil companies and a prescription drug maker were the most frequent sponsors of more than 100 expense-paid educational seminars attended by federal judges over a 4 1/2-year period.” About 185 federal judges participated in these “educational” events which were sponsored by multinational corporations such as ExxonMobil, Pfizer and BP."

I do not accept that the corruption that I outlined is a "conspiracy theory"-- it is a well-documented reality.

Where did this idea come from? :p .. You're on to something, by the way. It's almost as if you were already kind of convinced yourself.

ARGH! Close to a trillion dollars of net corporate value, and they can't afford a decent grammarian when they write an open letter to the President?!

(Hint: It should be "users'".)

Let's see how long it takes from here. :)

While we're at it, though:

- The clause "deploying the latest encryption technology" should actually be prefaced by "by", to balance the "by pushing back..."

- "We urge the US" could be made stronger by actually spelling out the full name: "We urge the United States..."

Nice site, otherwise.

* It says "Governments" (plural). That means because US security agencies have thoroughly breached the borders of acceptable privacy, now all governments should diminish their control. I'm aware Eu agencies do the same, but they don't build as big datacenters as the NSA does. By not having the same budgets, Eu agencies don't overreach as much as the NSA does.

* As a European, the best protection I see against all-spying programs is to have competitive European web services. For example I would support a Eu decision to require a European email address for communication with governments, or similar rules designed to make sure Europeans communicate through safe channels with their governments. It is also EU's role to make sure we have enough competitors so that citizens can use local providers (competitors to Fb, etc) to store their data in Europe, if those consumers trust European spying agencies. As a desired side effect, it is a way to grow our economy.

The Reform Government Surveillance would prevent us from passing reforms to locate European citizen data in Europe. Therefore, it's a very talented move from those 7 companies, and comes right at the right time.

I'll write you a check to cover the value of those "One weird trick to lose belly fat" ads.

Therefore it is up to technology and service providers to secure their customers against any and all snooping.

The idea that surveillance can be "reformed" is unworkable, unrealistic.

I disagree and feel this is a dangerous abdication of responsibility. I wouldn't believe politicians' reassurances about any reform, but clearly budgets could be cut, and strict safeguards put in place. We should expect nothing less from our governments, while working to protect ourselves as well.

- Tweet button doesn't have a link

- G+ share button isn't working

- Opengraph tags point to a missing image-url, so Facebook shares don't have an image associated.

I think maybe this hit HN before they were quite ready for launch - I'm guessing these'll be fixed pretty quickly.

Excellent move by the companies involved though. A lot of advocacy organizations have been pushing these companies to come out publicly meaningful surveillance law reform, and this is a great start.

I'm not the only one thinking this is a tad hypocritical, am I? It just makes me think that somewhere, some powerful dude went "They are trying to cut in on our action?!?" and decided not to accept projected financial losses by something as petty as a government.

But obviously, this might be the first voice governments actually listen to. Not because what they propose is the right thing to do, but because money.

Apparently this is the best the system currently allows. Capitalism depresses me.

For most people, if it doesn't happen on TV, it doesn't happen at all.

Note that there's already a similar initiative launched by Mozilla called Stop Watching Us [1]. None of the PRISM companies signed it.

Instead, they filed a petition (of little value, but with a big pomp) to allow for full FISA order statistics be published. Which was denied, incidentally.

[1] https://stopwatching.us/

"© 2013. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners".

I guess this is just one person aggregating the information together?

edit: Not sure why Apple is included at the bottom but seems to be the only company there that isn't listed in the top set of logos. Not sure if that has any significance or is an oversight or..

What I can't see happening is the other Five Eyes partners or their governments changing. The UK political classes in the main appear bullishly, unrepentant, aggressive towards descent and hawkishly pursuing dissidents including newspaper editors.

(midnight PST)

:Reform Government Surveillance

:Global Government Surveillance Reform

The undersigned companies believe that it is time for the world’s governments to address the practices and laws regulating government surveillance of individuals and access to their information.

While the undersigned companies understand that governments need to take action to protect their citizens’ safety and security, we strongly believe that current laws and practices need to be reformed.

Consistent with established global norms of free expression and privacy and with the goals of ensuring that government law enforcement and intelligence efforts are rule-bound, narrowly tailored, transparent, and subject to oversight, we hereby call on governments to endorse the following principles and enact reforms that would put these principles into action.

:The Principles

:1 Limiting Governments’ Authority to Collect Users’ Information

Governments should codify sensible limitations on their ability to compel service providers to disclose user data that balance their need for the data in limited circumstances, users’ reasonable privacy interests, and the impact on trust in the Internet. In addition, governments should limit surveillance to specific, known users for lawful purposes, and should not undertake bulk data collection of Internet communications.

:2 Oversight and Accountability

Intelligence agencies seeking to collect or compel the production of information should do so under a clear legal framework in which executive powers are subject to strong checks and balances. Reviewing courts should be independent and include an adversarial process, and governments should allow important rulings of law to be made public in a timely manner so that the courts are accountable to an informed citizenry.

:3 Transparency About Government Demands

Transparency is essential to a debate over governments’ surveillance powers and the scope of programs that are administered under those powers. Governments should allow companies to publish the number and nature of government demands for user information. In addition, governments should also promptly disclose this data publicly.

:4 Respecting the Free Flow of Information

The ability of data to flow or be accessed across borders is essential to a robust 21st century global economy. Governments should permit the transfer of data and should not inhibit access by companies or individuals to lawfully available information that is stored outside of the country. Governments should not require service providers to locate infrastructure within a country’s borders or operate locally.

:5 Avoiding Conflicts Among Governments

In order to avoid conflicting laws, there should be a robust, principled, and transparent framework to govern lawful requests for data across jurisdictions, such as improved mutual legal assistance treaty — or “MLAT” — processes. Where the laws of one jurisdiction conflict with the laws of another, it is incumbent upon governments to work together to resolve the conflict.

:Voices For Reform

“AOL is committed to preserving the privacy of our customers’ information, while respecting the right of governments to request information on specific users for lawful purposes. AOL is proud to unite with other leading Internet companies to advocate on behalf of our consumers.” —Tim Armstrong, Chairman and CEO, AOL

“Reports about government surveillance have shown there is a real need for greater disclosure and new limits on how governments collect information. The US government should take this opportunity to lead this reform effort and make things right.” —Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook

“The security of users’ data is critical, which is why we’ve invested so much in encryption and fight for transparency around government requests for information. This is undermined by the apparent wholesale collection of data, in secret and without independent oversight, by many governments around the world. It’s time for reform and we urge the US government to lead the way.” —Larry Page, CEO, Google

“These principles embody LinkedIn’s fundamental commitment to transparency and ensuring appropriate government practices that are respectful of our members’ expectations.” —Erika Rottenberg, General Counsel, LinkedIn [when LinkedIn criticizes your privacy policy you know something's wrong]

“People won’t use technology they don’t trust. Governments have put this trust at risk, and governments need to help restore it.” —Brad Smith, General Counsel and Executive Vice President, Legal and Corporate Affairs, Microsoft

“Twitter is committed to defending and protecting the voice of our users. Unchecked, undisclosed government surveillance inhibits the free flow of information and restricts their voice. The principles we advance today would reform the current system to appropriately balance the needs of security and privacy while safeguarding the essential human right of free expression.” —Dick Costolo, CEO, Twitter

“Protecting the privacy of our users is incredibly important to Yahoo. Recent revelations about government surveillance activities have shaken the trust of our users, and it is time for the United States government to act to restore the confidence of citizens around the world. Today we join our colleagues in the tech industry calling on the United States Congress to change surveillance laws in order to ensure transparency and accountability for government actions.” —Marissa Mayer, CEO, Yahoo

:An open letter to Washington

Dear Mr. President and Members of Congress,

We understand that governments have a duty to protect their citizens. But this summer’s revelations highlighted the urgent need to reform government surveillance practices worldwide. The balance in many countries has tipped too far in favor of the state and away from the rights of the individual — rights that are enshrined in our Constitution. This undermines the freedoms we all cherish. It’s time for a change.

For our part, we are focused on keeping user’s data secure — deploying the latest encryption technology to prevent unauthorized surveillance on our networks and by pushing back on government requests to ensure that they are legal and reasonable in scope.

We urge the US to take the lead and make reforms that ensure that government surveillance efforts are clearly restricted by law, proportionate to the risks, transparent and subject to independent oversight. To see the full set of principles we support, visit ReformGovernmentSurveillance.com

Sincerely,

AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter, Yahoo

It's my understanding that Mozilla doesn't have significant "skin in the game" compared to the services these companies are providing.

Again my opinion, not speaking for Mozilla officially.

I imagine him at work and subject to a constant stream of information showing what our own government is doing to us. I imagine him repeatedly thinking this is wrong. And I imagine him looking deep inside his sole to decide whether his convictions and belief system required him to act or not. Of course, that decision had to come with the full understanding that he would be at the receiving end of the full wrath of the US intelligence, law enforcement and military machinery. At best he'd have to live on the run his entire life. At worst he'd end-up dead or in a dark cell, completely disconnected from humanity.

With that reality in front of him this man decided he needed to stand up for those of us who could not. He decided to, effectively, sacrifice his life in order to attempt to right a massive wrong being perpetrated on the people of the US and the world. That's right up there with a fireman running into a burning building or a soldier taking a bullet to protect your way of life.

This man is a hero. I hope this administration or the next comes to realize how much of a patriot a man has to be in order to risk it all to protect others. With that realization the only thing that remains is to bring the man home with open arms and have him be a big part of making things right for all of us.

That's what needs to happen next.

So essentially, the privacy concerns of people are being used as a ball between players, but the people are still going to get kicked around.

Until we address the almost complete corruption of the institutional structures that we consider to be foundational of this country... well, I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm pretty sure it won't be pretty for the serfs ahem I mean citizens.

The checks and balances system is almost non-existent. The executive has power over the other two branches, and the supra-national corporations have power over all three. The justice system is a farce, the SCOTUS are likely compromised, and oversight of intelligence agencies is almost non-existent. Resource wars loom on the horizon, what I call the shadow players like Zbigniew Brzezinski are encouraging a return to the tripolar world, and all this as wealth disparity increases amazingly fast.

Surveillance is not about security, it's about control. The question no one is asking is, "Why?".

Get people to sign up and pledge their support, organize local chapters, organize, organize, organize.

Am I the only one missing here the call to action?

Really, they bought the domain 5 days ago from GoDaddy?!

I think that sneaking points like this in weakens the effect of the whole thing.

Weren't all these people collaborating with authorities at the expense of our liberties -- and aren't they still?

What indication is there that this is not a hoax?

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/reform-ecpa-tell-g...

In particular, the sentence copied below makes it sound like just another summer new story that will soon fade into insignificance:

"But this summer’s revelations highlighted the urgent need to reform government surveillance practices worldwide"

powerful people should volunteer themselves to 24x7 surveillance.