Internet Privacy: the Post for Change

I'm Tobi Hahn, and my You and the World project was on internet privacy. The agent of change portion of my project happened at the same time as the reintroduction of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), a controversial internet privacy bill which was voted down last year. It would allow the government and corporations to share your private browsing data without a warrant or any justification. You could file a complaint saying that your data was used in a wrongful way, but CISPA also has a clause that keeps the use of your information secret. It could be abused for warrantless wiretap, copyright enforcement, and targeted ads. It is in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment. After it passed the house, I presented to my advisory about it. I explained to them how the bill would impact everyday internet usage, and encouraged them to sign a petition. On April 25, the Senate stopped CISPA in its tracks by refusing to vote on it. But CISPA is far from dead. It was voted down in the house last year, but came back this year. It is likely to come back again, possibly in separate bills.

My process changed significantly with the reintroduction of CISPA. My presentation was originally going to be about how you could improve your privacy on the internet, but then CISPA was reintroduced, and I recognized it as a bigger issue. If CISPA was passed, there would be no browser settings you could change that would preserve your privacy.

I encountered some problems with scheduling my presentation, as there were many presentations happening at the same time. I managed to find a time to present, however, and fixed the problem.

I think my presentation went well, as it raised awareness about CISPA. CISPA got little coverage in mainstream news outlets, and it could have had negative consequences for internet privacy if it was passed.

This project impacted me, as I saw that it was possible to make an impact in my community, even if it was just my school's community. Before it seemed like something that was not really possible to do without huge amounts of people and coordination. I think I am still learning how to make an impact, though, as I think I could have done a bit more. I only did one presentation and probably had time to do more.

For my presentation, I talked about what CISPA was and why it was a threat. I also talked about how it could be abused, and what you could do. Josh Berg said that my presentation was very informative, and it made him more aware about the topic.

You can see my slide deck below.

Since my presentation was before CISPA's defeat in the Senate, it seems a bit out of date now. I have made an up to date Prezi slideshow about why CISPA is a threat. You can see it embedded below.

Thanks for reading my Post for Change. I enjoyed doing my You and the World project and making an impact in my community. You can read my first blog post(it's on internet censorship) and my second blog post by clicking on them, and you can see my annotated bibliography here.
Please sign a petition to stop CISPA at cispaisback.com.