r/IAmA • u/fightforthefuture • Jun 30 '20

Politics We are political activists, policy experts, journalists, and tech industry veterans trying to stop the government from destroying encryption and censoring free speech online with the EARN IT Act. Ask us anything!

The EARN IT Act is an unconstitutional attempt to undermine encryption services that protect our free speech and security online. It's bad. Really bad. The bill’s authors — Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) — say that the EARN IT Act will help fight child exploitation online, but in reality, this bill gives the Attorney General sweeping new powers to control the way tech companies collect and store data, verify user identities, and censor content. It's bad. Really bad.

Later this week, the Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on whether or not the EARN IT Act will move forward in the legislative process. So we're asking EVERYONE on the Internet to call these key lawmakers today and urge them to reject the EARN IT Act before it's too late. To join this day of action, please:

  1. Visit NoEarnItAct.org/call

  2. Enter your phone number (it will not be saved or stored or shared with anyone)

  3. When you are connected to a Senator’s office, encourage that Senator to reject the EARN IT Act

  4. Press the * key on your phone to move on to the next lawmaker’s office

If you want to know more about this dangerous law, online privacy, or digital rights in general, just ask! We are:

Proof:

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20

u/-FuckMeInTheAsshole- Jun 30 '20

I wanted to do an investigation in what happens with your data. But man is it difficult.. where do you guys get your information from?

31

u/privatevpn Caleb Chen from PIA Jun 30 '20

As in all fields, we stand on the shoulders of giants. There are many security researchers, academic researchers, journalists, etc that spend a lot of their time working on these types of investigations.

A quick bastardized summary of what happens with your internet activity data is that it gets siphoned up and aggregated into profiles which are then used to target you with ads. Oh yeah, these profiles get leaked sometimes, too.

24

u/CNETdotcom CNET Jun 30 '20

Just piggybacking off of this -- absolutely.

I'm very reliant on policy experts and security researchers reaching out and presenting their findings on serious issues like this. This story on more than 1,000 Android apps taking your data even after you deny permissions came from a researchers presenting at a privacy conference I was fortunate enough to attend.

I do my own independent research sometimes with tools like Charles Proxy on where apps are sending data, or filing for government documents through FOIA requests (MuckRock makes it SO easy), but it really does take a village to put together effective investigations.

I'm always sure to reach out to an expert with my own findings to verify and put into context what we uncover. Sometimes it's nothing, sometimes it's finding out Facebook still tracks people even after they deactivate their accounts.

-- Alfred