I have been trying to explain to some people why I want a career in the open source industry, why Linux is important, and why there needs to be a distinct change in regards to the legal aspect of the stewardship of private data in our rapidly evolving modern world. Also how all of this ties into the Internet and Human Rights. I feel like I am having a hard time getting my point across so I hope you guys understand me.
I'm just trying to find a way to show people how the Internet and computers can have a profound impact on their rights without them looking at me like I'm crazy when I mention the words human rights and the internet in the same sentence.
I'd like to keep this pitch quick and concise in delivery, without being too too broad. This has been coming up in conversation with a lot of folks lately and I'm tired of struggling to put it all into words on the spot.
There is no way of doing this. People are stupid and do not understand the impact technology has on them every day. Until people get damaged by mass surveillance themselves you will be a tinfoil hat to them. But by that time you'll live in a totalitarian state.
Free Software would be the more appropriate way of framing your response if your goals are freedom,privacy, and human rights since they aren't goals or open source (though some are a side effect).
A lot of people have no idea how computers work and dont seam to care. In the few occasions that ive mentioned the stuff you have I usually end up giving the example of the post. GCHQ and the government have been collecting data from citizens on the internet, (there's no denying that and most people know about it in some sort of fashion), this is exactly like the government opening and recording your mail and resealing it before it gets to you, this is something they did during the war and as soon as the war was over they stopped doing it because it was an invasion of our privacy, theres no difference between information sent as a letter or as an email.
The problem when you ask if they would be OK with the government going through their mail.. people say yes. There that deluded and brainwashed by the media they have no idea of the consequences and simply don't care.
You know about the shootings in France right? The very first moment I heard about them I feared for our privacy.
Lo and behold: as soon as the shootings were over, the head of the MIVD ( military intelligence in the Netherlands ) literally said, on TV, that "we should not care too much about privacy, and the secret services should have acces to anything they need."
Shortly after that, our prime minister said that "where there is no budget, we will make budget." He also said that measures have been taken at many levels, though he refused to elaborate. The funny thing was, when people gathered to protest against terrorism, he held a speech saying that "we will not let our freedom be taken away." I have seldom seen such hypocrisy. These people are liars and vultures.
It appears that I am living in a totalitarian state. I'm screwed.
You're right about the free software thing, my bad. I mistakenly interchange the terms sometimes out of habit from not knowing the difference for a long time.
Whenever I encounter one of these boobs (people who are "OK" with illegal searches), I usually just tell them to throw away their Constitutional rights and start practicing their goose stepping. Because Hitler would be proud of all the little "lists" our authorities keep and use in an almost total disregard of any rule of law. He (Hitler) would be especially proud of our "no fly" list that is regularly used by government authorities to deny anyone the ability to contract with a private company and fly somewhere -- like to go see family. (We'll just never mind any buses, trains, or even automobiles that could also be used as human bombs). They (the idiots) better get used to the idea of always being a suspect by anyone with a badge and always being presumed guilty.
If these idiots are OK with their rights being trampled, then the screw any idea of an open internet too. Just because the Internet is a relatively new path of communication and is now digitized should not disregard any rule of law. (That's your sound bite.) Try reading our Constitution and a little passage called the 4th Amendment:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
And if you're into the whole conspiracy thing, FEMA is already set to bring back those old World War II Japanese concentration camps -- and you're probably already on the list!
So if you're OK with the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer and the general state of business getting more and more fucked up each day then keep going. Personally, I'm not OK with it and will use whatever knowledge and information I am allowed to consume on the Internet in my fight of the general stupidity (like right now).
... And if you're still getting resistance, you might like to start defining what a Fascist State is -- one like what 1930's/40's Germany had. (Hint: it's a government controlled by big business.)
And people just soak it up. Because surveillance isnt seen on the internet, people just dont care. It make me feel.. Im not sure of the word, like shit. People wouldn't stand for it if the surveillance was visible, but just because you cant see it doesnt make it any less a threat to our safety and freedom.
One of the major problems with all this data collection, is that its fine for them to say "we will only use it for good", but the next government has no obligation to do that, you see it all the time, new governments come in and slowly erode laws. You can not say that a government in 15 years wont use all this collected information to limit our movements and pre-emptively put people in jail as known critics of the government.
And what happens when you say anything like that, im immediately disregarded as crazy.. despite the government already using this type of information to do exactly that to certain people.
Funny thing is, the EU and US are working on a trade agreement that basically will allow the US to bypass our laws, and then basically make a colony out of the EU. It is being kept out of our news, which is obvious. I am amazed at how stupid people can be. Good thing to watch.
Oh, and another thing about the France shootings: Turkey has already insisted that the EU should make haste with keeping flight records of who went where and when. ( We are currently not doing that.) As I said, vultures. The reach of these attacks is much bigger than just a few victims, which means that they've reached their goals and that the politicians have reached theirs too. The real victims here are the EU citizens.
The problem in the US indeed seems to be more focused around megacorporations than around privacy. At least US citizens are kind of protected with respect to privacy by their own laws; but by the same laws the EU citizens are basically wild game.
I feel that the US has more extremes; in the areas that you have freedom, such as owning guns, you really are free. But in the areas that you have problems, ( such as corporations like Monsanto) your problems are much bigger than the problems we have with corporations. But, with this trade agreement that is in the making we will soon have those problems too. Isn't it just lovely?
How I have pitched opensource and Linux to people who don't care about privacy is by showing that opensource is a better way to do thing. t allows for faster development. Faster security patching and better all around security. Then I show them how much enterprise and the general infrastructure of the world uses it.
Sell it to through security against hackers. People are much more scare of them than they are of corporations/governments, even though the latter can do much worse things with your information than a script kiddie.
You have to tailor it to your audience. Going full RMS normally scares people, even though he is right on many things.
TLDR: Sell it with security against hackers and the business aspects of it wen dealing with the common Joe
The funny thing is that not only do people think it won't happen, they think something like the Holocaust can't happen again (even though it happens on a smaller scale today in third world countries). Tell that to Jewish communities in Europe during the 30s/40s... Everyone knows what happened to them. Some of those communities had even heard rumors of the labor camps (idk about the genocide) and still did nothing.
Hitler and his cohorts didn't have any of the tools our government has now. And look at the damage they did. I doubt genocide is the thing to be worried about, I'm more worried about a mass political prisoner system like what happened to Japanese-Americans during WW2, like you stated above.
Other than get into politics (I DO NOT want to be in politics, just not how I want to spend my limited time on Earth) all we can do is make more people aware, just like we do now on the forums. There is strength in numbers. The more people who understand whats going on, the better chance we have for the change we want to take place.
But like stated above, most people don't give a fuck about any problems that aren't 2 feet from their face. They just want to go back to their comfort zone, consuming, happy-go-lucky, and clueless. Even people I know who have a decent world view and perspective on how crappy the state of the human race is at the moment, just shrug off their privacy rights and the mass surveillance issue. Something bad is going to have to happen for there to be change, just like we've constantly seen in history. Human depravity is just too strong. It's not just the corrupt leaders who suck, its the normal people too. I usually try to avoid negativity, and yes there are many great things people do. I love life. But there is just some bad shit out there that needs to be handled.