[@OKFNau] Creating the Web We Want - free public forum

Mon Jun 2 05:14:18 UTC 2014

Hi everyone,

You may be interested in this upcoming free and public lunchtime forum,
which deals with issues of privacy in the age of mass surveillance, and
what we can do about it as individuals. Greens Senator Scott Ludlum will be
presenting alongside Electronic Frontiers Australia's Jon Lawrence, and Tom
Sulston from ThoughtWorks.

Details can be found below, and at
https://www.efa.org.au/events/web-we-want-2014/.

Cheers,
Lilly

Electronic Frontiers Australia, in partnership with ThoughtWorks Australia
presents:    Creating the Web We Want

   - Time & Date: 11:30am, 17th June 2014
   - Venue: Melbourne Convention Centre, 1 Convention Centre Place,
   Southbank (click for map)
   <https://www.google.com.au/maps/place/Melbourne+Convention+%26+Exhibition+Centre/@-37.825266,144.954588,17z/data=%213m1%214b1%214m2%213m1%211s0x0:0x958eeaf04deea384>
   .
   - Cost: FREE
   - Registration: Not Required

    Speakers

   - Keith Dodds <https://www.linkedin.com/pub/keith-dodds/0/410/a82> -
   Director, Client Relations, ThoughtWorks Asia Pacific (Moderator)
   - Senator Scott Ludlum <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Ludlam>
   - Jon Lawrence <https://www.efa.org.au/about/board/jon-lawrence/> -
   Executive Officer, Electronic Frontiers Australia
   - Tom Sulston <http://au.linkedin.com/pub/tom-sulston/0/411/178> -
   Principal Technical Consultant, ThoughtWorks

Revelations from whistleblower Edward Snowden have clearly demonstrated
that governments around the world have been engaging in dragnet-style mass
surveillance for years. We know that intelligence agencies, including the
US National Security Agency (NSA), the UK’s GCHQ and Australia’s Signals
Directorate have been intercepting and storing the records of hundreds of
millions of our phone calls, text messages, emails, web searches, website
visits, instant messages, and social media activity. We know that these
agencies have been sharing our information with other governments, large
corporations, and non-security organisations.

Governments have justified this mass surveillance on the grounds of
“national security” against “terrorism”. Yet there is no evidence that this
disproportionate intrusion into our private lives has stopped or foiled
even one terrorist act, despite the vast financial and social cost.

What these government activities have done is to build an extremely
effective surveillance infrastructure which police states of the past,
present, and future could only envy.

It is our duty to redress this illegal and immoral societal imbalance. What
legal, social, and regulatory policy reforms are necessary to safeguard our
right to privacy? What can we do both now and in the future to protect our
private communications from dragnet government surveillance? What level of
digital spying is acceptable in an Internet where our privacy is valued?

This free and public forum is part of the Agile Australia conference. It
will be a thought-provoking examination of privacy issues vital to the
future of digital freedom. It will include a review of available
technologies to resist dragnet surveillance, and global initiatives to
strengthen individuals’ right to privacy, as enshrined in the 1948
Universal Declaration on Human Rights. It will be a call to join and shape
local and worldwide activities to oppose mass government surveillance.
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