OpenMedia is hosting an online petition: Save our Security — Strong Encryption Keeps Us Safe to:
Leaked docs reveal the UK Home Office’s secret plan to gain real-time access to our text messages and online communications AND force companies like WhatsApp to break the security on its own software.1 This reckless plan will make all of us more vulnerable to attacks like the recent ransomware assault against the NHS.2
If enough people speak out right now and flood the consultation before May 19, then Home Secretary Amber Rudd will realise she’s gone too far.
Tell Home Secretary Amber Rudd: Encryption keeps us safe. Do not weaken everyone’s security by creating backdoors that hackers and malicious actors can exploit.
… (emphasis in original, footnotes omitted)
+1! on securing your privacy, but -1! on democratic action.
Assume the consultation is “flooded” and Home Secretary Amber Rudd says:
Hearing the outcry of our citizens, we repent of our plan for near real time monitoring of your conversations….
I’m sorry, why would you trust Home Secretary Amber Rudd or any other member of government, when they make such a statement?
They hide the plans for monitoring your communications in near real time, as OpenMedia makes abundantly clear.
What convinces you Home Secretary Rudd and her familiars won’t hide government monitoring of your communications?
A record of trustworthy behavior in the past?
You can flood the consultation if you like but effective actions include:
- Anyone with access to government information should leak that information whenever possible.
- Anyone employed by government should use weak passwords, follow links in suspected phishing emails and otherwise practice bad cybersecurity.
- If you don’t work for a government or have access to government information, copy, repost, forward, and otherwise spread any leaked government information you encounter.
- If you have technical skills, devote some portion of your work week to obtaining information a government prefers to keep secret.
The only trustworthy government is a transparent government.