[tor-project] The Tor Project Social Contract
Alison
macrina at riseup.net
Fri Jul 29 18:47:00 UTC 2016
I agree with what Katie said here:
"Lots of awful people hate human rights and so do the secret police.
Tor must be an organization that doesn't accommodate them, but instead
finds ways to side with and support the people they would like to oppress."
If we sanitize our message to exclude human rights, what's the limit of
what we'll say to appease the powerful? Let them try to ban Tor; we seem
to be pretty effective at circumventing their efforts. I'd rather us
focus on building relationships with the people on the ground in those
countries so that we can continue to build technology that assists them
in their struggles for justice.
Alison
PS - For me personally, "human rights" already feels like a compromise
from my actual politics, but I think that "no gods no masters no states
no bedtimes" is probably not going to have mass appeal.
PPS - I just want to point out that all of your citations are in
southeast Asia, and yet in your original email you named Africa as
another place whose officials eschew human rights. Maybe you didn't
intend for it to be read this way, but I bristle whenever I see someone
treat that entire continent like one country, and then fail to provide
any concrete examples relating to any of the countries within.
Alison
Virgil Griffith:
> Everyone on this list, including me, is pro human rights. Moreover, we all
> wish for Tor to further privacy, particularly for those in countries whose
> governments restrict human rights.
>
> The only question is which is the better tactic to more effectively
> "support the people they would like to oppress".
>
> I make exactly two claims:
>
> (1) that reducing obstacles to people using Tor is a more effective way to
> help people than the moral support in a mission statement.
>
> (2) emphasizing human rights in the mission statement nonnegligibly
> increases the risk of tangible, concrete obstacles to most needy users
> using Tor, and I cited some examples of this.
>
> One can disagree with either (1) or (2). But given both (1) and (2), I
> believe the conclusion follows.
>
> -V
>
> On Sat, Jul 30, 2016 at 12:23 AM, Kate <ailanthus at riseup.net> wrote:
>
>> Dear Virgil:
>>
>> I doubt our social contract is going to trigger international legal
>> battles around Tor. What governments really don't like about Tor,
>> despite what they might say, is that we prevent them from spying.
>>
>> However, let's think a moment about human rights.
>>
>> Here is Tor's official mission statement:
>>
>> "To advance human rights and freedoms by creating and deploying free and
>> open anonymity and privacy technologies, supporting their unrestricted
>> availability and use, and furthering their scientific and popular
>> understanding."
>>
>> Governments like to paint the idea of human rights as "Western" -- but
>> that's not the opinion of people in those countries pushing for basic
>> freedoms.
>>
>> For example, Chinese activists working on health, legal, and
>> environmental issues have told me, "The government says that human
>> rights are a western value, but don't believe them. Human rights are
>> universal." That was one of the first things one particular activist, a
>> doctor, told me just after he was released from prison for advocating
>> for healthcare for sick people in rural China.
>>
>> Many people have risked their lives on this proposition--for instance,
>> the original signers of China's Charter 08:
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_08
>>
>> Lu Xiaobo, the Nobel Laureate, is in prison in China for signing Charter
>> 08 (and he signed it knowing that it would likely trigger his
>> imprisonment). Many other people also went to jail for signing Charter 08.
>>
>> The point of Charter 08 --which is based on the Universal Declaration of
>> Human Rights--is to say--"Despite what you have been told by the
>> government--people in China demand and deserve their human rights. Even
>> now."
>>
>> Lots of awful people hate human rights and so do the secret police.
>> Tor must be an organization that doesn't accommodate them, but instead
>> finds ways to side with and support the people they would like to oppress.
>>
>> --Kate
>>
>>
>> Virgil Griffith:
>>> This looks very lovely. Thank you Alison for drafting it!
>>>
>>> The only part that concerns me is explicitly defining "We advance human
>>> rights" as part of Tor's core mission.
>>>
>>> The problem is that many people who need Tor the most live in countries
>> in
>>> which Tor's active alignment with liberal human rights advocacy would
>>> substantially (certainly non-negligibly) increase the chance of Tor being
>>> banned.
>>>
>>> Focusing on human rights gets you on the shit-list for most countries in
>>> both Southeast Asia and Africa. (Combined with China, this comprises
>> ~44%
>>> of the world population per Wolfram Alpha.) Presumably, privacy
>> naturally
>>> dovetails with human rights, but by explicitly stating we are primarily
>>> focused on human rights, Tor is likely to be banned in many countries in
>>> which it is sorely needed.
>>>
>>> For example, in Singapore they were discussing banning Tor but I was able
>>> to sway them to refrain because Tor is not just "human rights" (which the
>>> government does not care for), but is a privacy technology for many
>> things,
>>> such as whistleblowing (which the government likes).
>>>
>>> By pigeon-holing Tor into chiefly the human-rights category, it makes the
>>> argument to not ban Tor much more difficult. And Tor being banned is
>>> counter-conducive to human rights in these regions.
>>>
>>> So here's the question:
>>>
>>> ** Would people support Tor Project aligning itself with explicit human
>>> rights advocacy even if that alignment is likely to obstruct the
>> most-needy
>>> users' capacity to use Tor software? **
>>>
>>> -V
>>>
>>> On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 9:22 PM, Isabela <isabela at riseup.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I am with pikachu! +1
>>>>
>>>> Thank you for the great work community team! Like Teor said, it does a
>>>> good job describe what we value.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 07/29/2016 04:09 AM, isis agora lovecruft wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Alison transcribed 2.8K bytes:
>>>>
>>>> If accepting: your florid prose about why you love it and think it's an
>>>> astonishing work of art that reflects the diligence and care exercised
>>>> by the authors is quite welcome. A show of hands (writing an email that
>>>> says +1) is also fine. Questions are welcome.
>>>>
>>>> ----------------------------
>>>> | |
>>>> | |
>>>> | 1111 |
>>>> | ++ 11111 |
>>>> | ++ 11 111 |
>>>> | ++++++++ 111 |
>>>> | ++++++++ 111 |
>>>> | ++ 111 |
>>>> | ++ 111111111 |
>>>> | |
>>>> | |
>>>> ============================
>>>> quu..__ | |
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>>>> |#' `..'`..' `###': | |/ x: / /
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>>>> / .'' >::' /
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>>>> '''''
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Thank you for your feedback, and thank you to all of the Tor folks who
>>>> worked on this, especially Lunar and Roger, who got it started.
>>>>
>>>> Also +1.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> PM at TorProject.org
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>>>> @isa
>>>>
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