Based on Henry’s recent videos about encryption being under attack and age verification being on the rise, I wanted to write a post about what I’ve been learning about political activism so far.
Disclaimer: I got really upset, and so I’m sorry if this post comes across as more authoritative than it has any right to be. I’m a big dummy who’s only started learning about this stuff this year. But still I want to bias toward action and share what I have learned rather than waiting to become an expert before I try to do something.
Also this is biased toward the United States, but hopefully this can still kind of apply to your country!
What’s it gonna take?
Without getting into the reason why, 2025 has been a year where I have been seeking out how to organize as part of a political movement (it may not be hard to deduce why lol). I know how to threat model. I know that activists and political advocates need to take more precautions when speaking out. But that’s it. Before this year, I knew that you could write to your reps or call. I guess you could protest but sometimes that just seemed silly or out of place. And even then how do you start that? What is the point of even doing anything when you’re going to get steamrolled by the political machine?
However, I’ve gone from seeing no reason to fight to feeling compelled to fight. It’s not in big crazy ways. I’m still learning. I haven’t even done anything big. But with the way I see things going in the privacy world, I feel compelled to fight. If I expect for the surveillance state to get worse in the future, I have to take advantage of my freedoms today to stop it. I won’t be as effective in resisting in the future when my rights are diminished. If I expect to be less free tomorrow, I need to use my freedom today to protect my freedom tomorrow. Otherwise it will only be harder to fight back.
To that end I’ve been looking for how to fight back. How can I leverage constituent power with others? How can I organize to participate in effective movements? How can I get results and channel my energy productively rather than wasting away with private or individual activism? I’m done letting negative news wash over me as our digital human rights get eroded faster and faster. I need to do more, and I’m hoping to connect with others who want to do the same.
How do we change the world?
This is the core of what I’ve learned for how movements can organize to achieve political change - like minded people need to come together to convince others to their cause and apply pressure to the powers that be until they change. The strategies and tactics may vary, but the goal is the same of working as a team to apply pressure to the people who need to change.
Thankfully, the EFF has set up a framework and structure that we can use to get started.
Get connected with a group
The first step we can take is to connect with others. Ideally in person because it will be relevant for pressuring organizations at different levels, like your county vs state vs federal government.
The EFF organizes the Electronic Frontier Alliance, “a grassroots network made up of independent community organizations. Allies across the United States work to support digital rights and empower their local communities.” The EFA lists groups across the US who are aligned with the EFF and fight for our shared values. Look at their directory and see if there is a group you can join!
If there isn’t a group near you, then the job is harder. Consider making a group. Maybe it’s tough to find two other like-minded individuals who want to coordinate action, but now is the time to go big mode. We are not just sitting on the sidelines to see what the government brings us. This is the time when we make whatever infrastructure we need in order to effectively fight surveillance.
Personally, I don’t have a group near me that fits on this list, so I am strongly considering forming one. I don’t know how I will do it, but I will figure it out. First ideas are to advertise on Reddit and Meetup, maybe start virtual, and maybe connect with student organizations who want to attend something virtual. It’s going to take creativity, but we’ll figure it out.
The reason I want to connect with others, especially in person, is not just because we will share a jurisdiction. It’s because it will be easier to fight this thing in community rather than alone. And it will be harder to ignore if there’s a group of us.
Call your elected representatives
Whether you can join others or not, the next thing we can do is call our elected representatives. The EFF has an action center that you can use to see what Congress is considering so that we can call our representatives and tell them what we think.
Calling is one of the most effective ways we can influence our politicians. It lets them know what their constituents are thinking. It lets them know how passionately they feel about it. Potentially, when you’re organized, I assume it can get you opportunities to change their policy positions. Every time you call it creates a record on their end that shows someone cared enough to call to leave an opinion. By acting collectively we are trying to show them we mean business.
I’ve been calling my reps consistently for the last few months maybe a few times a week. Maybe my phone calls are not much, but it’s like 20 more phone calls than they were getting last year so it’s something. And hopefully it will be even more by the end of the year. I want to insist on being listened to. I don’t care what my rep thinks. He needs to hear what I think because he represents me. You don’t need to care what your rep stands for. They need to listen to you.
By leveraging the EFF Action Center, you don’t even need to be doing research to know when to call. Lean on the EFF. When they say it’s time to call, you call. And if you want, call again the next day. Ask for a follow up. Ask for an appointment with your rep or something. Hammering the offices of our elected politicians is how we get their attention. I don’t have millions of dollars to lobby these people, but I have a phone number and five minutes a day.
Organizing more broadly
Once we have our foundation, then we can build our local organizations and connect more with our friends in other parts of our cities, states, and the rest of the country.
The EFF provides toolkits for how to organize. This includes guides for social media advocacy, building coalitions, traditional media tips, and more. We can learn how to be community organizers. The more we try the more we get better. As more people join people see that we’re serious. The EFF themselves are available to help! And we can link up with national campaigns that the EFF runs to multiply their effectiveness and encourage advocates nationwide.
We can also try all kinds of ideas:
- Hosting talks about why digital privacy matters
- Hosting more general community events about technology to help educate people
- Run seminars where we help people threat model or improve their security hygiene
- Do a repair cafe to help people fix old computers or move to Linux
- And probably lots of other creative things
Not everything that we do needs to be a grind. This can also be an opportunity to form a real community that actually unites around something rather than simply standing against something.
This sounds like a lot…
Yeah, I know. It is.
Honestly, even sharing all of this now before I’ve done basically any of it feels foolish. I don’t want to share all of this and find myself doing nothing a year from now.
But like enough is enough. Even the small amount I do is at least something. Even if all I can do is call reps to tell them to respect my human right to privacy, at least it’s something. But I have to act. We have to act. We can’t sit by and let big tech takeover the rest of our lives so that we truly cannot escape. And you know they’re not sitting on their hands. Big tech and governments are in a tug of war to spy on the world and they’re taking us for granted. Today we have a fighting chance. Tomorrow we may not.
If you’re freaked out by the recent attacks on encryption, if you’re fearful of the death of the private internet, if you feel like the walls are closing in to seal our dystopian fate, join me in fighting back. Maybe we don’t know what we’re doing, but we’ll figure it out.