ChristopherCalabrese

I'm going to pause for a moment and shill for ECPA reform. See the links above for more detail on what it is and why it needs reform, but if you agree please sign our petition to support updating it: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/reform-ecpa-tell-government-get-warrant/nq258dxk

Yes I shamelessly have my hat out for petition signatures. But as my son told me recently about Christmas, "How are you supposed to know what I want unless I tell you?"

It's hard for me to do better than my colleague Mike German (a former FBI agent):

I had been working for the FBI for 16 years and domestic terrorism for 12 years. What I understood was that the rules that are designed to protect privacy also help the government focus on people who are real threats. It works both ways. This idea that we trade our privacy for more security is just false. Spying on you won’t help the government find a terrorist. It’s a waste of resources, a waste of effort that also violates our rights.

Read the whole thing if you can - he provides lots of detail to emphasize this: http://dailycaller.com/2013/11/05/former-fbi-agent-mike-german-talks-about-the-nsa/#ixzz2mcaHEqCj

BTW there is nothing cooler than working down the hall from a guy who used to work as an undercover FBI agent. The stories I get to hear on a slow Friday afternoon are pretty great.

Howdy. I'm excited to be doing this. I'm going to dive into the questions in sec but it only seems polite to introduce myself. I'm Chris Calabrese. I've been an ACLU lawyer for almost 10 years and am one of the ACLU's privacy lobbyists. My focus is basically on everything privacy that is not the NSA. Looking forward to a wide ranging discussion about email privacy and other fun tech privacy issues!

They're most effective when combined with other things. As part of a larger campaign they can strengthen the hand of people advocating on your behalf on the inside for example. But yes in isolation the message/focus can be lost. When I'm thinking signing something like this I usually try to determine if someone is actually going to follow up on it and actually do something more.

I view privacy as a continuum of rights. We are getting scarily close to a 2 in terms access to information. Right now the NSA attitude for example seems to be any electronic record is our, and it's totally legal. Given that everything is an electronic record that is pretty scary.

However governments (and companies) aren't always using everything they know either because of legal rules or because they realize it would freak people out. So say a 5 with a serious downward drift.

And Silent Night.

edited for typos - likely to be a theme :)