Electronic Freedom Foundation selective in support of freedom

[Sean Lynch]

On Wed, Jan 6, 2016 at 2:47 PM Ryan Carboni <ryacko at gmail.com> wrote:

> > These occurred five years apart, and only the second one involved an
> actual
> > court case. I don't think it's a reasonable comparison.
>
> Maybe not. But one must tirelessly question inconsistencies. The
> amount of harm to Backpage is very indirect, it was a letter to credit
> card companies. The EFF however is okay with a letter to a printer -
> the web host - to discontinue service. Comparatively, the harm to
> wikileaks was far greater than that to Backpage, but the EFF was more
> willing to support Backpage with a brief, than to volunteer support to
> Wikileaks.
>

I think you're leaving out something kind of important in your comparison.
Whatever you think of the morality of what Wikileaks is doing (personally,
I strongly support it, even if I don't consider Julian Assange the best
poster child), they *are* breaking US law. Amazon's terms of service don't
allow that, and AIUI that's what Lieberman's (who is below Satan and Eric
Posner on my list of favorite people) letter said. I'm guessing the circuit
court would not have found that the sheriff's letter to the credit card
companies constituted a prior restraint on freedom of speech had it been
about Backpage's breaking the law.


> I have no doubt that Glenn Greenwald will never mention this,
> afterall, he himself is selective in questioning other public figures.
> He'd never question public figures in a meaningful way. And apparently
> neither will the EFF.
>

Everyone needs to make their own choices about where they want to take
risks and spend their time and credibility/political capital. I'm happy
Greenwald and the EFF do what they do. I don't think they're perfect, but
I'm not one to talk; I've found myself self-censoring quite a lot more
since my kids were born.


> With ineffective dissidents like these, who needs oppression?
>

I'd certainly prefer a world with the EFF and Greenwald but without the
NSA, CIA, GCHQ, etc. I'm sure you don't mean this literally, but I do think
it's important to keep a sense of perspective.

If you're dissatisfied with the willingness of various dissidents to...
well... dissent, let's talk about how we can influence them or others to
dissent in ways you think will be more effective.
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