[tor-project] Teaching lawmakers about Tor for rule 41 amendment

[Roger Dingledine]

Hi Alison, Kate,

Check out
https://theintercept.com/2016/04/28/supreme-court-gives-fbi-more-hacking-power/

I think this is a really important outreach topic.

A) We should reach out to the senators who are planning to fight
the changes, to offer to teach them more about Tor and more about the
Internet, see if they have any questions or concerns, etc.  I bet there
are some staffers somewhere who are working on exactly this topic, and
everything they know about Tor they learned from one scary video about
the dark web. We should teach them how Tor works, why people need it,
and why a diversity of types of users is key to its security.

B) At the same time, we should learn what their talking points are, so
we can be better at educating people about the issue. In particular, one
of the quotes in the article says it's "possibly the broadest expansion
of extraterritorial surveillance power since the FBI's inception",
but at the same time, I can totally picture people saying "Oh come on,
it's just Tor, how can that be such a big change?" We would be smart
to have concrete non-Tor examples of what these new powers would allow,
so everybody can understand that these changes aren't just about Tor.

Thanks!
--Roger