The really terrible part of all of this is that the administration's response has been to put James Clapper, the guy who lied under oath to congress about the scope of these very programs, in charge of reviewing the policies that created them.<p>He should be facing charges, and instead he's promoted to an oversight role.<p><a href="http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/08/12/this-technical-review-group-brought-to-you-by-the-booz-allen-hamilton-director-of-national-intelligence/" rel="nofollow">http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/08/12/this-technical-review-g...</a>
Really nice site that could get out into social media and spread quite easily! I mean, that combination of animations and potent yet minimalistic text really gets the point through in a small package.
"NSA surveillance has damaged foreign relations. Millions are protesting worldwide and European businesses are abandoning U.S. tech companies. Total losses could reach $35 billion."<p>I'm not sure where WaPo got that $35bn number, but it seems quite low to me.
Thanks for all the kind words :) Fixed up the quote and the first slide.<p>I'm doing everything I can to try and get this in front of people. I'm extremely grateful that a discussion happened on HN and am looking forward to seeing where the site goes from here.<p>Cheers,
Mike
Lots of inaccuracies and fallacies.<p>The NSA Spying is not against the fourth amendment. If you're a lawyer feel free to correct me but the supreme court has made it very clear that they believe the framers were being literal when they said "persons, houses, papers, and effects." and they have said they believe this cannot be extended to non-tangible things like data.<p>And whether I'm right or wrong it's better to say 'We Believe' it is a violation... because if it was then the NSA would have been forced to stop<p>The big problem is that the NSA can do this without breaking the law...
This is good, but I think a more effective way is to bring up some hypotheticals. You don't even have to make up your own. Just look at history and you will find lots of examples of how secrecy leads to corruption, in-fighting, negative psychological effects, loss of free expressions, fear, oppression, etc.<p>One neat way to approach this would be to talk about an example that happened in the past and draw parallels with what it going on today. It's difficult for people to understand or see where all this leads, which is why there's so little revolt. Unfortunately, by the time people feel the effects it's too late.
"There is no evidence that the FISA Court and NSA programs are effective. Mass surveillance did not prevent tragedy in Boston or aid in identifying those responsible."<p>I think this part very much weakens your argument and should be removed entirely. First, the NSA has nothing to do with domestic surveillance -- that falls upon the FBI. Secondly, you can collect all of the data that you want, but you won't be able to prevent the lone wolf element (as opposed to organized terrorism), especially with no national database of firearms.
<i>According to a recent NSA memo, 1.6% of all online activity is monitored and collected. That’s enough to capture more than 50% of all internet communications.</i><p>== Leverage
I like that the site's design is entirely based on the flag of the Netherlands, famously the country with the highest amount of phone taps per inhabitant.
Spying? In MY country?<p><a href="http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/x-in-my-y" rel="nofollow">http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/x-in-my-y</a>