Privacy Activism 2.0

lessons learned from the fight against data retention

in Germany

Ralf Bendrath www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de

bendrath.blogspot.com

How did we get there?

The issue

• December 2005: Data Protection FAIL – EU Directive on Data Retention adopted– „We must do something in Germany now“

• Now: Broader internet freedom movement– „Federal Trojan“, censorship, …– Also privacy offline: labour rights etc.

Data Retention & Privacy

At the beginning, there was no plan

(but a mailing list and a wiki)

Participation

Pop Culture Viral Marketing

Get offline!

Results

Internationalization

„Freedom not Fear“

Lessons Learned

Forget Control

• open structures and free licenses

• „ownership“ instead of control

• experts for substance and legal issues

• pop culture and fun

Give people an environment in which they can do what they are good at.

Be Ready for Ambivalence

• amorphous structure – organization? platform? network? alliance?

• political conflicts can‘t be solved online– often they don‘t have to

• trust does not scale– „Web of Trust“, F2F meetings– but still many unknown helpers & fighters

• herding cats and leadership by listening

Twitter changed the game again

• current anti-censorship fight

• „traditional“ activism 2.0 structures– Yes, we still have a wiki and a mailing list…

• but main activity over Twitter– A movement glued together by one hashtag

• 100,000 signatures within 3 weeks!

• „Where do I get these T-Shirts?“- http://dataloo.spreadshirt.net

• How can I participate?– next „Freedom not Fear“ action day– Saturday, 12 September 2009– http://wiki.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/

Freedom_Not_Fear_2009

Q & A