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• The president has appointed Rudy Giuliani — yes, the guy who ignored advice not to house New York City’s emergency command center in the World Trade towers — to head U.S. cybersecurity efforts. The Web site of Giuliani’s security firm has been offline since shortly after the announcement, when independent experts found the site to be ridiculously insecure. Additionally, Giuliani’s own account password was hacked and published online. An incompetent White House cybersecurity effort will leave us all more vulnerable as hackers gain ever more sophistication and the government goes the opposite direction.
  
• Even conservatives are alarmed by the privacy views of Cabinet members selected by the new president. CIA director-designate Mike Pompeo favors lifting nearly all restrictions on government spying on the citizenry, favoring a Big Brother type of monitoring system. Conservative Review quotes Pompeo: “Congress should pass a law re-establishing collection of all metadata [who we contact and when], and combining it with publicly available financial and lifestyle information into a comprehensive, searchable database. Legal and bureaucratic impediments to surveillance should be removed.”
• The executive order regarding refugees that has sparked such an uproar contains a lesser-known provision that attempts to strip all privacy rights from people who aren’t U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents.
• The White House is considering requiring anyone visiting the United States to divulge Web sites they visit, including social media, as well as their contact lists. Experts point out that bad actors will simply lie or hide their tracks, while honest individuals will have their privacy destroyed. If this doesn’t persuade you of the administration’s utter contempt for Constitutional privacy rights, consider the next point:
• It’s disturbing enough — even to some leading Republicans — that the president appointed white nationalist Steve Bannon to the National Security Council (NSC). But less noticed: At the same time, he demoted the Director of National Intelligence and the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — i.e., the nation’s top intelligence and military officials. Those two will attend meetings of the NSC Principals Committee only when "issues pertaining to their responsibilities and expertise are to be discussed," according to a memorandum issued by the president on January 28. So, how might one define “national security” in such a way that it may not “pertain to the responsibilities” of the top intelligence and military officials, but would require the president’s Alt-Right-hand man? Suppression of domestic opposition, perhaps?
• As the Center for Democracy and Technology points out, the new White House Web site violated the government’s own privacy policy and industry best practices, collecting visitors’ identifying information without providing access to a privacy policy. (The opening page that asks for visitor e-mail addresses and ZIP codes appears only when you first visit the new site.) 

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​We Can Secure Our Own Privacy
 
So, we cannot count on the federal government to protect our security or privacy online. To the contrary, the government may become an enemy of privacy, snooping on citizens in an unprecedented way. It is no a stretch that a government that has already branded the news media as “the opposition” and said it should “shut up” will also consider citizens enemies for exercising our Constitutional rights to oppose its policies. But that doesn’t leave us defenseless: There are ways we can “harden” our online presence to protect ourselves and those with whom we communicate.
 
Consider carefully that last phrase. Even if you feel you have nothing to hide and you aren’t concerned about government intrusion into your privacy, what about the people who communicate with you? Their texts and e-mails are on your smartphone, too.
 
Fortunately, there are ways we can secure our information, currently. This may not last into the far future, as new technologies make it easier to “crack” encryption (scrambling of data), but presently, most cybersecurity experts believe it’s quite possible for the average person to protect her/his data. →

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Women’s March, Oakland, CA, USA, Jan. 21, 2017. Photos by Steve Freedkin

​Coming off of the high of the January 21 Women’s Marches (estimated at 3.6 to 4.8 million people in the U.S., with at least another quarter-million worldwide), many of us are feeling energized for action — including perhaps millions who have not previously been politically active. The marches garnered massive media coverage, illustrated the massive resistance to the new administration, gave participants a much-needed psychological boost, and, I hope, set the stage for continuing action. By Saturday evening, the national organization had launched a new action campaign for the next 100 days. If even a few percent of the millions of U.S. participants stay active in an ongoing way, there will be no stopping us.
 
There is a natural tendency to experience a letdown after such an exhilarating event. We must not allow that to deter us from remaining vocal. How to do that in a way that really makes a difference is the subject of this blog.
 
Especially for relative newcomers to activism, it’s hard to discern what’s effective, what’s a relative waste of time, and what might even be counterproductive. With the widespread attacks on our values and goals coming from the new administration, we feel pulled in many different directions, egged on by frantic calls to do something right now (and struggling to figure out which might be “fake news”).
 
Having worked in social change since childhood in the late 1960s, mentored by people who were active long before I was born, I’ve learned and seen for myself what works and what often does not. I’ve been in the leadership of campaigns that stopped two proposed nuclear power plants (including one already under construction), established recycling programs when that was still rare, saved a city mini-park from being turned into a fast-food restaurant, gotten green-energy legislation passed, and helped elect candidates who appeared to be the longest of long-shots. In this article, I’d like to share some pointers that I hope will help you figure out where to most usefully put your energies in the days, weeks, months, and years ahead.
 
In this installment, I’m focusing on separating legitimate actions from scams and on influencing legislators. I’ll address other action strategies in subsequent posts.

Making a Difference in D.C.

​Over the last several decades of my social-change work, the advice from legislative staff members and lobbyists hasn’t changed much. Here are strategies for influencing elected officials, starting with the most effective — but see the important caveat* following this list):

• Personal visits to a legislator’s office; speaking out at town hall or other public event held or attended by the legislator (most effective)

• Letters to the Editor and opinion pieces written by local folks in newspapers and online news sources

• Phone calls to the legislator’s office (slight bias toward the district office, versus Washington)*

• Hand-written letters and calls mailed to the legislator’s office, especially with your personal story of how the matter affects you or your loved ones; typed letters are a little less impactful*

• Personalized e-mails using the legislator’s Contact Web page, especially with your personal story (much less effective than letters and calls, though)*

• Impersonal e-mails and online petitions simply copying the arguments drafted by the organization promoting the issue (least effective, although staff members often do report numbers pro and con to the elected official)*

 
Do you see a pattern here? The more effort it takes to initiate the communication, the more impact it has. If you use a method that takes more work, the recipient of the communication will consider you more dedicated to the issue.

Several former Democratic Congressional staffmembers put together (on their own time, as volunteers) a guide explaining how the Tea Party rose to prominence and had an outsized impact compared to the number of people represented. These staffers know what affects an elected official better than anyone else (maybe even better than the elected officials). Their guide is worth reading and re-reading (and has been updated as recently as Jan. 5): https://www.indivisibleguide.com. You might also review this article with tips for impacting Congress, by a former Republican Congressional staffer who opposes the new regime. And then there is the excellent Shy Person’s Guide to Calling Representatives — thanks to reader Tani for alerting us to this one!
 
But what if my Senator/Rep is one of the “good ones”? As the authors of the Indivisible Guide note, it is helpful to support your elected officials who are doing good. But if you, like me, feel a little ironically disempowered by having elected officials to whom you’re always saying “thanks again,” I have an action step for you at the end of this message.

Diversions We Can’t Afford
 
Many times each day, I’m seeing in my Facebook feed, e-mail in-box, and text-messaging app a series of urgent calls to action. Many of these (though perhaps not all) are well-intentioned, but quite a few contain tell-tale signs that their strategies are ineffective or even harmful. Frantic admonitions to make calls or send e-mails and then “COPY AND PASTE THIS” nearly always contain incorrect information and bad strategy. (There’s a reason they’re circulated in a way that makes their origins obscure.) In a few cases, they may even be planted by the right wing to keep us busy spinning our wheels, or to collect our identities for later harassment.
 
Here are some “action alerts” to avoid: →
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Like almost everyone I know, I’ve been struggling since the election to regain equilibrium and discern a way forward. A dangerously unhinged sociopath is about to ascend to the presidency; nightmare scenarios that would have sounded absurd just weeks ago now seem fully plausible.
 
I have long believed that effective activism toward a better world is difficult if undertaken solely as a reaction to what we oppose. Without a positive vision, and the faith that it is achievable, we act in ways that may be ineffective, even harmful. It is well established that expectation creates outcome. To create the world we seek, we require an idea of what that looks like. Findings in the scientific literature [also here and here] and popular media [also here] bear this out: What we expect to happen is more likely to happen. Moreover, what we expect of others influences them to behave in ways that meet our expectations.

Finding the Positive
 
I’m not arguing that high expectations would lead the incoming leader to suddenly become rational or “presidential.” But we can still take a certain kind of positive approach. If, rather than simply reacting with disgust and dismissal, we are able to evaluate him with the astuteness of, say, a Vladimir Putin, we might discern ways to have a positive impact.
 
So, is there a plausible positive vision for the time ahead? I think there is.
 
During the 1960s, the nation suffered through the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, candidate Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and others. Thousands of young men were drafted and sent to Vietnam, where many were killed or wounded in body or in spirit. Yet the sixties and the early 1970s also saw massive social progress. Civil rights, feminism, and environmentalism made huge strides. In a terrible time, visionary movements not only pushed back against the darkness; they brought forth new light.
 
The silver lining I see in the very, very dark cloud we face is the possibility that the coming period will bring forth a level of progressive activism the likes of which we’ve never seen — one that moves our society far forward, leaving the current backlash in the dustbin of history. This won’t happen without huge setbacks and great pain; but if we keep our eyes on the prize, I think we can get there.
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Some Reasons for Hope
 
Here are some reasons I have hope:

• The new administration comes in with an incredibly weak “mandate” — losing the popular vote by nearly three million, with polls showing 51% disapproval of the presidential transition (versus 12% disapproval of Obama’s transition eight years ago). Many Republican leaders are already publicly expressing dismay about the guy in charge. (In response to a series of tweets slamming civil-rights icon Rep. John Lewis, one Republican Member of Congress tweeted at the president-elect, “Dude, just stop.”) The new administration is assembling a largely incompetent team (with not much government experience [more info here] and little education) who stand a good chance of being rather ineffectual.

 

• People are ready for action in a way that I’ve never seen. Folks around me are eager to jump at the chance of doing something. I’m hearing people talk of retiring from their careers to focus on social activism. Communities of all sorts are gearing up for action. And the frantic, factually challenged, strategically unsophisticated chain-mail and chain-post “urgent alerts” are starting to give way to well-thought-out resistance. →