Since our privacy rights are constantly being threatened by government bills, and how many privacy infringements we don’t have the power to stop, I believe it’s imperative for people in the privacy community to start writing letters to the officials elected to represent them, and the site should have a guide on the how’s and why’s to make it easier. Some things I’d like to see in the guide are:
A part explaining the reasons behind writing to elected officials
A part talking about the different ways to contact different offices. This will need to be different from country to country A list of active organizations by country to get involved with
A writing guide for letters and emails, including one or multiple general formats, and suggestions for talking points and things to ask for
Blurred items are things deemed unreasonable, but I kept them to keep context for the replies, and the text following the blurred part is the replacement idea
The EFF and ACLU have a ton of information on the topic of contacting Congress members in the United States. I’m not sure what it’s like in other countries
I think that’s out of scope for us. It’s probably better to find pro-privacy organizations that are active in your country and get involved with them. I just don’t think there’s any way we could possibly cover what the best thing to do in every country is, that’s best left to local organizations that have experience in your local legal system.
I agree with Fria that how to specifically contact officials sounds like too large of a task.
But a more general overview of the why it matters sounds worthwhile. For example, a quick search gave me this paper on participatory inequality. Are there more studies that can be added to show what works and how well?
Would having a list of what organisations and institutions are active be more manageable? Such as having links and an introduction of who they are and what they do. Or is that also straying too far beyond the scope of Privacy Guides?
Given the amount of letters these representatives get, it is very unlikely there would be a response.
That’s why it’s important for more of us to do it. And the goal isn’t to get a response back from them. It’s to bring this issue, and our interest in it, to their attention