“We need an entirely new way of thinking about and writing privacy laws, because Big Tech has gotten too good at manipulating process-based laws for its own benefit.” — Ari Ezra Waldman, in How Big Tech Turns Privacy Laws Into Privacy Theater
Yeah really! And, we need new ways of organizing to get these new laws passed. Washington state had some significant successes over the last couple of years, including Bellingham’s banning city use of facial recognition and predictive policing; King County becoming the first county in the US to prohibit on the county government from using facial recognition technology; and once again stopping Big Tech from passing the weak, corporate-backed, process-based Bad Washington Privacy Act.
Grassroots organizing has played a key role in this, with privacy advocates on the WA Privacy Organizers list as well as groups like Tech Equity Coalition, WA People’s Privacy, Indivisible, Code Blue, and DemCast all getting involved. And while there’s no substitute for local and in-person organizing, online organizing can be a powerful complement.
So this section of the site is focused on organizers and activists. Currently, we’ve got information about state legislative activism in 2023, the start of a how-to section (with information about how and why to sign in to a legislative hearing), and archives from 2022 with state and federal activism. More soon!