[liberationtech] Obama's review group on surveillance seeking public comment, including "impact on foreign policy"

[Danny O'Brien]

(Apologies if you get this via a few mailing lists. I've tried to spread
it widely yet thinly. And of course, feel free to forward yourself, if
only so I get less blame for over-forwarding)

The newly created Review Group on Intelligence and Communications
Technologies is seeking public comment on surveillance. As you know, EFF
is has been sceptical of toothless DC investigations of the current
state of US mass surveillance, but I thought we should draw wider
attention to this request, as:

    1) It's the first review we've seen that specifically asks for the
    topics like "impact on foreign policy" and "maintaining the public
    trust", which gives a window for non-US contributions on how
    damaging the US surveillance has been to the rights of Internet
    users outside the US, as well as any effects on the global
    reputation of the United States.

    2) This is the Obama-mandated committee, which means that its
    process will probably be given more attention in the press. That
    means that while there's plenty that's problematic about the
    composition of the board, it will get coverage.

    3) It's asking for contributions by October 4th 2013, so there's
    less than a month.

We've blogged about here[2], including a cc: address ( ODNI-comments at
eff.org ) we've set up so that if you do email a contribution (and they
don't publish it), cc: us, and we can include your submission in our own
wider list of public comments. You can just send us a link to your own
hosted response, and we'll link to that too.

[1] http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/08/12/presidential-memorandum-reviewing-our-global-signals-intelligence-collec

[2] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/09/tell-us-government-what-you-really-think-about-nsa-surveillance

Hope this is useful info; happy to answer any questions or talk more on
strategy,

d.

-- 
International Director, EFF | +1 415 436 9333 x150 | 815 Eddy Street, SF, CA 94109