Tomorrow is The Day We Fight Back!

Learn more about how dozens of organizations (including your own OpenMedia.ca) are taking a stand against mass, suspicionless spying of law-abiding Canadians on February 11. See you back here tomorrow morning. Article by Lee Rickwood for The Calgary Herald: The ‘fight’ is planned for just one day, but more and more it seems there’s an ongoing battle being waged.

On one side, international digital rights organizations, citizen lobby groups, global media companies and other supporters of online freedom and open media access.

On the other, the forces of Internet control, mass surveillance and state security. Government agencies like the NSA and CSEC among others.

A day of action, protest and remembrance is planned for Tuesday, February 11th — it’s called The Day We Fight Back.

It comes two years after controversial Internet legislation, bills known as SOPA and PIPA, were defeated by a massive online and digital protest. Both bills were tabled in the U.S., though they were seen to have global implications.

Here in Canada, protests were also staged against Bill C30 online (a.k.a. ‘The Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act’), which was also seen to extend surveillance activities and security powers far too broadly.

But having succeeded at least temporarily in the fight against unwarranted Internet control, many now see even greater challenges.

“Today we face a different threat, one that undermines the Internet and the notion that any of us live in a genuinely free society,” say protest organizers. The threat is mass surveillance, they say, and programs like the NSA’s PRISM, CSEC’s airport monitoring, and international counterparts like Five Eyes and Tempora.

Read more at The Calgary Herald