We take back the internet

From Demand Progress:

In January 2012 we defeated the SOPA and PIPA censorship legislation with the largest Internet protest in history. A year ago this Saturday one of that movement's leaders, Demand Progress's cofounder Aaron Swartz, tragically passed away.
Today we face a different threat, one that undermines the Internet, and the notion that any of us live in a genuinely free society: mass surveillance.

We miss Aaron dearly. If he were alive, he'd be on the front lines, fighting against a world in which governments observe, collect, and analyze our every digital action.

Now, in honor of Aaron on the eve of the anniversary of his passing, and in celebration of the win against SOPA and PIPA that he helped make possible, we are announcing a day of protest against mass surveillance, to take place this February 11th.

We can think of no way that he'd rather be honored than one that might have such a positive impact on the world.

We're calling it, simply, The Day We Fight Back.

You can visit the hub website we're building to support this effort at TheDayWeFightBack.org. It'll let you know how to help.

Meanwhile, right now: Aaron's friend Cory Doctorow, the filmmaker Brian Knappenberger -- whose film about Aaron will premiere at Sundance this month -- and representatives from Demand Progress and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are on reddit to talk about Aaron and the work we will do to honor him -- and push back against the NSA -- over the next month.

Click here to join the chat, and vote it up to make sure it's seen by as many people as possible.

As was often the case, Aaron said it best: “[We defeated SOPA] because everyone made themselves the hero of their own story. Everyone took it as their job to save this crucial freedom. They threw themselves into it. They did whatever they could think of to do.”

In the last 6 months we’ve seen that government agencies, namely the NSA and GCHQ and others, have broken laws and twisted legal interpretations to create an infrastructure of mass surveillance of all of us online.

This creates a dark form of censorship, of course, as people become afraid to speak freely-- and it’s one that undermines our security and our right to privacy as well. As users of the Internet, we have a responsibility to defend its freedom.

With SOPA, we had a clear goal: defeat a specific bill. In this case, we have to take a first step. We have some promising bills (like the USA Freedom Act) and terrible ones (the FISA Improvements Act). But we need our legislators to hear from people who love the Internet that we won’t stand by and let it be turned into a giant tool for mass surveillance. We need to push them to have the courage to support comprehensive reform. The kind of courage Aaron showed us all.

So today, on the eve of the anniversary of Aaron’s passing, we’d like to ask you to join us in stepping up to the plate once again in defense of a free, open and secure internet, where no one has to watch over their shoulder for big brother.

In memory of Aaron, and looking back to the successes of the SOPA campaign, we’d like to ask you to join us in a month of action, culminating in a day of action on February 11th. Here's what we need you to do today:

1) Visit TheDayWeFightBack.org to join in the activism.

2) And click here to join us, Cory Doctorow, Brian Knappenberger, and EFF to talk about Aaron and the activism we're going to undertake to honor him.

In solidarity,

Demand Progress