Technology companies have to fight for their users, or they’ll eventually lose them.
Bruce Schneier
The Atlantic
8/12/2013
It turns out that the NSA’s domestic and world-wide surveillance apparatus is even more extensive than we thought. Bluntly: The government has commandeered the Internet. Most of the largest Internet companies provide information to the NSA, betraying their users. Some, as we’ve learned, fight and lose. Others cooperate, either out of patriotism or because they believe it’s easier that way.
I have one message to the executives of those companies: fight…
…Already companies are taking their data and communications out of the US.
The extreme case of fighting is shutting down entirely. The secure e-mail service Lavabit did that last week, abruptly. Ladar Levison, that site’s owner, wrote on his homepage: “I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly ten years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit. After significant soul searching, I have decided to suspend operations. I wish that I could legally share with you the events that led to my decision.”
The same day, Silent Circle followed suit, shutting down their email service in advance of any government strong-arm tactics: “We see the writing the wall, and we have decided that it is best for us to shut down Silent Mail now. We have not received subpoenas, warrants, security letters, or anything else by any government, and this is why we are acting now.”…
…Journalism professor Jeff Jarvis recently wrote in The Guardian: “Technology companies: now is the moment when you must answer for us, your users, whether you are collaborators in the US government’s efforts to ‘collect it all’ — our every move on the internet or whether you, too, are victims of its overreach.”
So while I’m sure it’s cool to have a secret White House meeting with President Obama — I’m talking to you, Google, Apple, AT&T, and whoever else was in the room — resist. Attend the meeting, but fight the secrecy. Whose side are you on?…
Image: The Washington Post
The complete article is at The Atlantic.
