You can haz my freedom. As long as I can haz my pr0n

is not the issue we’re facing"""]]

Context

Yesterday, the National Assembly in France voted the LPM (Loi de Programmation Militaire – Military Planning Law) and a lot of the so called civil society was upset about the Article 13 that may (or may not, we can’t know given the way the text is redacted) legalise what has been illegal for the state until now: wide collection of data and communication in a state without a judge intervention if it’s for the defense of the state.

And I really think that civil society is now dead in France. And I’m saying that while working for a NGO – FIDH (Human Rights International Federation) – and after helps LQDN fighting ACTA, HADOPI and all this stuff.

I just think that the 13th article of this law is just a diversion, a bone throw to the civil society to fight against and to enable the government to do worst at the same time.

Don’t touch my porn

Everyone, including me, is fully aware that each attempt to control and censor the internet (even if it’s stupid) is dangerous because it deprives you of your liberty to … to do what? To consume moar advertisement push to us by private companies.

We’re not using this fantastic tool to build a new society, to change the old one, to organise protest like it’s the case almost everywhere in the world (Tunisia, Egypt, SYria, Ukrain, Greece, Brazil, I mean, look at the news: world is in flame). We’re using it to watch porn and to stalk our neighbour.

So, yes, you will fight for your right to watch porn. That’s OK, I mean, I can’t blame you for wanting to watch porn. But you will defend only that. When people are in the streets fighting for the «internet», they’re not asking for freedom of organisation, communication and privacy. They just want to watch movies they do not want to pay for (because the movies are so lame nowadays that anyone should pay for that, I agree) or to watch their neighbor having sex at a party.

And now, the civil society is just raging against each attempt to censor the big ternet. Except it’s mostly fighting on that. We were already lured in the past, when opposing DADVSI while anti terrorism law were passed. Twice.

The issue is that organisation (and non organisation) such as LQDN might be great to get people calling parliamentarians in the French national assembly or in the Euopean parliament (after all, ACTA was defeated), but they’re not good at explaining to the people why those laws suck.

The thing is that now, we have in each and every law (about planning of military operation, prostitution, gambling, copyright fraud, criminalisation of hate speech, etc.) an article about Internet and censorship/controls.

The thing is that now, we’re fighting only on this point. Us, the citizen, at least the one who are occupying the mediasphere and the social space, are only focused on internet, and nowhere else.

It means that it’s easy for the governement to pass a new security law. It ust have to add a censor-the-internet-article-we-do-not(really-want-in-fact and just wait for the civil society to go after this specific piece of article that the governement is willing to abandon anyway.

It will give civil society the feeling that they’re usefull, while validating that this way of governance works.

Well, you know what?

G

O

F

U

C

K

Y

O

U

R

S

E

L

F

!

It’s a lie.

It does not works. A society which is OK with mass surveillance (whereas using cameras for CCTV, advertisement display with eye-tracking and face recognition system, invasive social networks and other facial recognition system branded as cool) is not a democracy.

Wake up!

It’s time to stop believing that the orderly and controlled protests, petitions and yelling at people works. It doesn’t, the current politician cast is gaming us and this system.

We need to teach, to provide as many explanation as necessary, to fight the fear and to help everyone to have a better understanding of what internet actually is, what it’s not and why it’s the best and most beautiful thing humanity ever created (yet). And we can’t do that by using the traditional way of expression.

We must stop trying to convince politician and start more powerful grassroot and decentralized movement. We must build that alternative society everyone is dreaming of. We must stop thinking that politicians and corporations will ever hear the people, because it won’t happen as long as they think they’re safe. We must challenge them and threatens their safety.

We must not abandon our rights, among them the right to have a private life and to protect it from interference according to the Article 12 of the UDHR, but it’s a bit late.

I mean, 2001 is the first anti-terrorist law (LSQ). We since had a lot of them. And each time, there’s only the internaut – or, well, the one who enjoy their porn – to fight them.

It was twelve years ago. And we still have all of them. No one is publicly asking for the abrogation of those laws. Instead of that we’re just reacting, we’re playing a defense game in which we can only lose something (a small piece of liberty or a bigger one), we need to take the initiative now.

How many loss of liberties should we endure before someone will actually move? I think that we just quit the fight. I think that we think about what we can lose if we start getting angry, and that’s why we’re hearing a lot about what’s happening in Greece. Our so-called leaders are using Greece as a bogeyman to scare us and keep us at peace like, you know, saying "You shouldn’t ask to much or you could loose evrything". The problem here is not about what’s left that we can loose. It’s about what we could win.

So, just wake up. ANd think about what we can have, start asking for things instead of waiting that what you deserve is attacked by one more stupid law. Take back the street. Threatens and challenge the ones in power. Use the solidarity and means of communications you have around you.

The issue is not the politicians. The issue is you. You let them control your


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