SiSU: - Homeland - Cory Doctorow

Homeland
What is the common purpose of all of these people? It is for the whole of our efforts to be
more than the sum of our parts -- this creates a surplus for you -- to give breathing room to
others, so that they may take the torch of knowledge, of reason, of justice, of truth telling,
of sunlight -- to the next step, wherever it may lead us.
There was a time when there were no drone killings, societies have existed without armed
policemen, where peace is not only possible but actually a steady state, where mass
surveillance was technically and socially infeasible, where fair and evenhanded trials by
impartial juries were available for everyone, where fear of identification and arrest was not
the norm but the exception. That time was less than a generation ago and much more has
been lost in the transition from one generation to the next.
It's up to you to bring those things back to our planet. You can do this with little more than
cooperation, the Internet, cryptography, and willingness. You might do this alone or you
might do it in a group; you might contribute as a solitary person or as one of many. Writing
Free Software empowers every person, without exception, to control the machines that fill
our lives. Building free and open hardware empowers every person, without exception, to
construct new machines to free us from being slaves to machines that control us. Using
free and open systems allows us to construct a new basis by which we may once again
understand as a whole, the systems by which we govern ourselves.
We are on the edge of regaining our autonomy, of ending total state surveillance, of uncovering
and holding accountable those who commit crimes in our names without our informed
consent, of resuming free travel without arbitrary or unfair restriction. We're on the verge
of ensuring that every person, not one human excluded, has the right to read and the right
to speak. Without exception.
It's easy to feel hopeless in the face of the difficult issues that we face everyday -- how might
one person effectively resist anything so much larger than herself? Once we stop acting
alone, we have a chance for positive change. To protest is to stop and say that you object,
to resist is to stop others from going along without thinking and to build alternatives is to
give everyone new choices. Omission and commission are the yin and yang of personal
agency.
What if you could travel back through time and help Daniel Ellsberg leak the Pentagon
papers? Would you take the actions required, would you risk your life to end the war? For
many it is easy to answer positively and then think nothing of the actual struggles, the real
risk or the uncertainty provided without historical hindsight. For others, it's easy to say no
and to think of nothing beyond oneself.
But what if you didn't need to travel back through time?
There are new Pentagon Papers just waiting to be leaked; there are new wars to end,
new injustices to make right, fresh uncertainty that seems daunting where success seems
impossible, new alternatives need to be constructed, old values and concepts of justice
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