EFF's full-page Wired ad: Dear tech, delete your logs before it's too late

Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/12/19/effs-full-page-wired-ad-dea.html

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–bravo–

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To quote Masha Gessen: Surviving autocracy Rule #1: Believe the autocrat.

Unfortunately a lot of of liberals are stuck in the denial and bargaining stages while time is running out. Having never lived outside their comfortable bubble of relative peace and security, they refuse to face what anyone who paid attention to history already knows, peace and security are the exception, not the norm. This includes most of the technocrats. Their spineless unwillingness to face reality is endangering millions of their fellow Americans. Many of them will or already are becoming quisling collaborators with the incoming fascist administration. The speed with which many have been willing to throw away their avowed principles is sickening. History will not forgive them.

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Yep. An issue with the USA is people are polarized into Rep / Democrat. It’s politically clever, but cheats people of their ability to express a free choice.

You’re 100% on it with the ostrich syndrome. It’s kind of egotistical - they’re hating the failure, the incapacity to fend this off - and frankly, they should. A total idiot is now president elect. A dangerous idiot.

So now really is the time to stand up and be counted, to be aggressive and activist, and not to shirk comfortably away. We cannot afford to try and luxuriously balance all the elements of the ethical equation - the enemy here is smart, fast, and driven.

So yeah - delete the goddamn logs, now.

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REVEAL: If you get a government request to monitor your users or censor speech, tell the world

Isn’t this expressly prohibited in most cases – to the extent that some organizations have a “We haven’t been requested by the government to…” message that is supposed to silently disappear if they have been.

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What does delete your logs even mean? As a user, I wouldn’t be happy if Facebook decided to delete my old photos or videos, I expect them to keep them. Same with old emails. Google could delete my search history, but within a week they would have built up the same profile again.
So some specifics, please?

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Yes, those are frequently called a “Warrant Canary”

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This article is tripe. The current President expanded and abused surveillance powers like never before. We barely have a 4th Amendment now.

Yet those who regularly disregard Boing Boing’s content may bandwagon behind greater Federal surveillance, just as this article pushes anti-PEOTUS people to all of a sudden rally for a Government limited to reasonable searches.

Stop treating Constitutional Rights like football plays. If it works for my team, I like it. If it works against the other team, I like it. That’s a 4-to-8 year alternating Tyranny, not a Republic.

Natural Rights aren’t tactial assets of craven 2-party system hacks and their media accomplices. We see what you’re doing.

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I’ve got to agree with you. President Obama has been no friend to either privacy for the populace or transparency by the government.
I can see why the EFF is doing this now but the guy in the office already has the logs.

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You do realize that just because you delete your Google information and no longer have access to it doesn’t mean it’s not still being used by Google .
Rest assured in any case that information has already been prisimed up and sent to a server in the black box in Utah.

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Sometimes it takes courage and breaking a law to get things fixed.
Unfortunately tech companies are risk adverse when it comes to profit

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There has been plenty of vociferous dissent to Obama’s invasive privacy policies, drone program, extrajudicial assassinations et al on this site. It is the main reason I read it daily. bB is also the main outlet reporting on and supporting EFF and their good works.

The premise of your argument seems to be based on the idea that because bB reportage skews liberal, everyone here is blindly adherent to Democrat policies. Hardly.

Welcome to bOing bOing. Stick around for a while.

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Boing Boing and the EFF have been calling out the Obama administration on these issues for years.

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FutureDanger posts EFF articles all the time. This article reeks of a tactical political switch. Don’t care to what this site’s readers blindly adhere or vociferously type into keyboards. The hypocrisy of ‘delete it all now!’ - for THOU SHALT FEAR TRUMP - is the point.

Change that to fear and confront centralized Federal power, no matter who welds it, and we’re on the same page. Which probably isn’t a Boing Boing webpage.

Bingo. This administration and its party must be treated as public enemy no.1 until they can be disposed or voted out. Guard up.

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Cory, at least, seems pretty consistent in criticizing Obama when he tries to centralize power.

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A tactical political switch? @doctorow works for EFF!

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As others said, EFF has been fighting government overreach by every President since 1990 (when it was founded).

This new ad is aimed at any overly optimistic admins who refused to see that Obama was abusing his power. Whereas everyone in tech agrees that Trump will use domestic spying to its fullest (including his supporters, who eagerly await it).

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To borrow a phrase, a hypocrisy doubles you chances of being half right.

I’m a little more hung up on how right the right half of the message is than how politically motivated the wrong half of the message is.

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Awesome!

I’m not sure where in the tubes you’re coming from, but, as @nimelennar has graciously documented above, this site is home to skeptics, both in the comment section and the editorial staff. They may not employ the exact same dog whistle language you are used to hearing, preferring a (usually) nuanced examination of available points of view, but they are hardly turning a blind eye to “government overreach” or whatever other reactionary language you prefer.

Since you’re new to bB I might suggest you pick up Cory’s (the author’s) Little Brother, a fantastic examination of surveillance state and popular proto-fascist policy acquiescence.

Or, keep swinging wide and making vast and uninformed assumptions about people you don’t know.

EDIT:

Just stopped by FUTURE DANGER!!! to see what you’re referring to. When I welcomed you to stick around bB and join the discussion, I wasn’t being snide. Especially if that’s where you’re getting any “information”, you would do yourself a great service to engage with this thoughtful and well-informed community. There aren’t many.

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