Americans mobilise to keep the Internet. This Bill will have adverse effects on Australian Internet users
This is the last 24 hours to do anything to stop CISA, the biggest mass surveillance bill since the Patriot Act. We’re running out of time to save what freedom we have left on the Internet.
Fortunately, we have a plan to get the job done. Recent research shows that the best way to get senators’ attention is by tweeting at them because it holds them publicly accountable — so we built a tool that makes it easier than ever before to rain down a fiery storm of tweets on the Senate.
Don’t use twitter? Click here to go straight to the site to call, email, and tweet.
CISA would, for the first time, create an explicit online data sharing and prosecution agreement between companies and the government. Seven federal agencies and the FBI can use that data for many purposes, including building cases around suspicion of small crimes, like fake id’s. The lobbyists behind CISA claim it would help cybersecurity, but this bill isn’t written so they only get cyberthreat indicators. This bill is much, much more than just that, and no independent expert thinks it would do anything to make us more secure.
We need about a dozen more senators to understand that CISA is not what they’ve been told by the lobbyists. Some tech companies, like Apple and Twitter, have already begun calling on senators to oppose CISA for privacy reasons, and everyone outside of the D.C. bubble already thinks this is a horrible, privacy-destroying bill. We need to break through the lobbyist buzz and make sure our senators know that CISA is actually going to make the Internet less safe and less secure.
We’ve been hammering the Senate with opposition to CISA, but the companies that are lobbying for immunity have more connections and give more money to politicians. We just learned that Facebook is using their connections on the Hill to secretly lobby for CISA while trying to appear indifferent publicly.
Send a tweet right now asking your senators to vote against CISA.
It only takes 10 or so tweets on a topic for a Senate office to notice, and most offices say they factor in tweets when deciding how to vote on bills. Many offices seem to be up in the air on CISA right now, with tech companies and other industries pulling them in opposite directions. If we can show them that their constituents stand solidly against CISA, we have a shot at securing the votes we need to stop this from passing.
Senators want to be able to say they did something for “cybersecurity,” but if they think the Internet is up in arms they won’t want to be on the wrong side. Right now the companies that want immunity have more traction than Internet users who want their privacy respected because of their money and corrupt lobbying practices.
Companies like Comcast, Facebook, and Bank of America are lobbying Congress to pass CISA so they can do whatever they want with your data. These companies want CISA for the legal immunity, and the Intelligence community wants it to get more data on people’s Internet communications. This bill would give more power to institutions that already have way too much power while taking away the basic rights of ordinary people who have already had so much taken from them.
If you already tweeted (or just don’t use Twitter), go the extra mile and call your senators too.
We’ve come so far already in this fight against CISA. Congress has tried to pass legislation like this over and over and each time we’ve been able to beat it back because of people like you.
Now, we need to make this the death blow to CISA today.
We hope you’ll stand with us on the right side of history, and help fight this bill before it’s too late.
Edward Snowden Verified account @Snowden Oct 25
Shameful: @Facebook secretly backing Senate’s zombie #CISA surveillance bill while publicly pretending to oppose it. https://boingboing.net/2015/10/24/petition-facebook-betrayed-us.html …
· Retweets 5,582
· Favorites 3,489
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2:43 PM – 25 Oct 2015
· For the future,
– Donny, Tiffiniy, Evan, Holmes, Jeff, Charlie, Aki, Jessica, Sarah,
P.S. Check this out — it’s not just us that’s been on Facebook for secretly lobbying for CISA — even Edward Snowden tweeted about our campaign over the weekend.