20 June 2017 — OpenMedia
The votes are in, and a Conservative minority government is now hanging on to power by a narrow thread.
Unfortunately, the election’s outcome has deeply worrying implications for our digital rights. A few weeks before the election, the Home Office’s covert plans to invade our privacy were publicly revealed thanks to a shocking leak by our friends at Open Rights Group.1
These secret plans — an insult in and of themselves to transparent democratic process — will have enormous consequences for Internet users right across the country.
Theresa May and her Ministers want to bypass encryption and gain real-time access to your text messages and online communications. They even want to force companies like WhatsApp to break the security on its own software, making us all more vulnerable to attacks like the recent ransomware assault against the NHS.2
We can stop this, but we need to show newly-elected MPs the strength of opposition that’s out there. That’s why we’re stepping up this fight and taking things to the press with our new Letter to the Editor tool.
With such a narrow margin in Parliament, your voice can have a huge impact on how MPs vote. Use this tool to send a letter to your local newspaper, making clear you expect your MP to Save Our Security.
The time is ripe to bring attention to digital security: newly-appointed MPs are especially sensitive to their constituencies’ loudest concerns. They’ll be looking closely at what their local newspapers are saying — and that’s right where they’ll see your letter in defence of a strong encryption plan!
We’ve seen this powerful attention-grabbing tactic work well in both Canada and the U.S. before, where we helped citizens across both nations voice their outrage over proposed legislation that would undermine their privacy. Getting so many citizen voices into local newspapers really helped change the debate.3
Theresa May’s logic around accessing mobile phone text information in real-time is all wrong. Faulty handling and government workarounds to encryption technologies don’t protect citizens, instead they compromise the best tools citizens have to maintain their security. This is precisely what led to the recent worldwide ransomware attack on computers around the world, which halted NHS hospitals, literally putting lives on the line.
In these challenging times, it is vital that we don’t lose our democratic values in the name of saving them — but that’s just what Theresa May is threatening to do. No matter where you live in the UK, please speak up now with our powerful new tool.
The UK deserves better, and we’re counting on you to lift democratic powers to their full potential, right when it matters most. Can you a send a letter to your local newspaper today?
Onwards, as ever,
Aleks
On behalf of your OpenMedia Team
P.S. Please don’t believe those who pretend these extreme powers are needed to stop terrorism. Theresa May’s misguided plan is just a ‘something must be done’ response to a horrific attack on our lives. But all the expert evidence says that this will help criminals, not stop them.4 That’s why it’s never been more important to speak up for basic British freedoms.
Footnotes
[1] LEAKED Draft Statutory Powers, Source: Open Rights Group
[2] Investigatory Powers: ‘Real-time surveillance’ in draft update, Source: BBC
[3] Defend Your Privacy at the Border, Source: OpenMedia
[4] Sir Tim Berners-Lee warns Government against ‘disaster’ of breaking encryption. Source: Daily Telegraph
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The New Dark Age 