Update NDG Referendum

[Michael Kohler]

Hi everyone

As per today there were more than 55'000 valid signatures for the NDG
(intelligence service law) referendum. This means that on Thursday those
signatures will be given to the officials and we are gonna have a vote
on the proposed law changes around June/July. Woohoo! This means:
MozillaCH community members, let's mobilize!

A little bit more than 3.5 million Swiss citizens will be able to decide
for themselves if they want to allow the extension of Swiss Intelligence
Service's lawful capabilities to snoop on our private data or not. The
proposed changes in the law include allowed use of GovWare to infiltrate
domestic and foreign computer infrastructure, IMSI-Catcher, snooping on
internet traffic if one of the participants is not in Switzerland (ha,
we know how that turned out with the NSA) and more.

The parliament will also discuss the proposed changes to the BÜPF (law
about post and telecommunication) in their next session (AFAIK), this
will include a lot of the above mentioned points as well since the NDG
is more or less put on top of the BÜPF law. As it seems now the data
retention period for providers will stay at 6 month, but we will see.
(Personal note: can we finally get rid of it completely?)

Let's mobilize and educate people about why privacy matters so we get a
majority voting "No" for the proposed changes! There will be a lot of
different initiatives around privacy from Mozilla's side (for example a
Campus campaign about privacy). More on that in a later email. What I
can say for now is that we definitely can align ourselfs with our
initiatives and act as a main partner in conversations around privacy in
Switzerland.

I think we have a lot of potential here. Does this sound interesting to
you and would you like to raise your voice as part of the Mozilla community?

@Raegan: maybe you could share some insights on what the Policy &
Advocacy team is planning for H1 2016 by replying to this mail?

Cheers,
Michael

--
Michael Kohler
Mozilla Rep - reps.mozilla.org/u/michaelkohler
<https://reps.mozilla.org/u/michaelkohler/>
Mozilla Switzerland - mozilla.ch <https://mozilla.ch>
German-speaking Mozilla community - mozilla.de <http://www.mozilla.de>

[Jean-Yves Perrier]

Hi!

Are there any action foreseen on the week-end of Feb 28th?

It is voting day (on other subjects) but it is a day where field actions
near the voting places are common: you reach people that actually vote
(not all of course, as remote voting is common).

I understand that we don't have the structure and man power to do this
all over the place, but there may be an opportunity to team or to help
other partners then.

"P-26 didn't even dreamt it, Büpf does it. No to a P-26 power 10" [1]

--
Jean-Yves

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_files_scandal

--
"Prenez soin des minutes, les heures prendront soin d'elles-mêmes."
P.D. Stanhope (4e baron de Chesterfield, 1694-1773)

[Michael Kohler]

Hi Raegan

Sorry for the late reply, turbulent few days last week..

We copy/pasted a few resources in EN and FR to
https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/mozillach-ndg-info . This is
splitted into two sections, general voting procedure and NDG relevant
information.

Feel free to get back to us for any questions!

Cheers,
Michael


Am 20/01/16 um 17:17 schrieb Jean-Yves Perrier:

[Michael Kohler]

Hi Raegan

Did you already have a chance to look at our resources? Any update from
the team meeting on Monday?

Feel free to get back to us for any questions you might have!

Cheers,
Michael
<http://www.mozilla.de>


Am 07/02/16 um 16:40 schrieb Michael Kohler:

[Michael Kohler]

Hi Raegan

Thanks for your response! See my answers inside.


Am 23/02/16 um 14:20 schrieb Raegan MacDonald:
> Hi Michael,
>
> Thanks for the links. I have a few questions I'm hoping you can help
> us answer:
>
> - do you have any further information on the timing of the vote (looks
> like earliest date is June 5, let me know if that's likely to change)

Currently it looks like the vote will be at the end of September
earliest, since the voting on June 5 is already full. It will definitely
*not* be before June 5 however. Let's calculate with a timeline towards
September.

>
> - will the public vote "yes" or "no" or do they get to vote on
> specific amendments?

No, it's either "yes" on everything or "no" to everything.

>
> - does the referendum *only* concern the surveillance aspects or new
> aspects of the law, meaning that they vote against all of those, and
> the law still goes through?

Unfortunately no. The reform is one package. Even though we don't agree
with the surveillance parts of it, we needed to do the referendum for
the whole package. This is also what the people in Switzerland will be
voting about. So it's either voting "no" (e.g. against the reform) and
it will stay like it is currently, or voting "yes" (for it) and the
whole package goes through.

>
> Any other explanation on the process here would be very helpful as we
> try to figure out the call to action for our community in Switzerland.

Here's how it will go more or less:

* There won't be a lot of media coverage or thoughts about it before the
vote on June 5th
* After that vote, discussions will start towards that, this is probably
the point where it makes most sense to hook in
* In the last few weeks before the vote there will be a lot of media
coverage (mostly coverage of things the big political parties do
though). I think this is the time to be vocal and maybe we can get a few
article in our favor. We're not the only ones against it, so there is a
bigger chance. The Social Democratic Party
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democratic_Party_of_Switzerland)
will be against it as well and hopefully can mobilize a lot of people.
* That is also the point where we could for example do street promotion
and hand out flyers (pretty sure the Community Creative team could help
out with the design here)
* Around two weeks before the voting all the voters get an envelope with
the voting sheets and some information about the votes. This needs to be
filled out until around 5 days before the vote and sent signed to the
city's office. Another option is to go to a voting office on the voting
Sunday.

I think it would make sense to think about when we want to interact
here. We would have needed to start right now if the vote was in June,
but it moving to september means that there will be another vote in
between and most people won't care about the votes that will be in
September. Nevertheless we should stand against it and start our efforts
right now (even if that is only general privacy education and not
specifically about the voting).

Maybe it would make sense to define a timeline with our actions here?

Thanks,
Michael

>
> Many thanks!
> -Raegan

>
> On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 11:04 AM, Michael Kohler
> <mko...@picobudget.com <mailto:mko...@picobudget.com>> wrote:
>
> Hi Raegan
>
> Did you already have a chance to look at our resources? Any update
> from the team meeting on Monday?
>
> Feel free to get back to us for any questions you might have!
>
> Cheers,
> Michael
>
>

> Am 07/02/16 um 16:40 schrieb Michael Kohler:
>> Hi Raegan
>>
>> Sorry for the late reply, turbulent few days last week..
>>
>> We copy/pasted a few resources in EN and FR to
>> https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/mozillach-ndg-info . This is
>> splitted into two sections, general voting procedure and NDG relevant
>> information.
>>
>> Feel free to get back to us for any questions!
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Michael
>>
>>
>> Am 20/01/16 um 17:17 schrieb Jean-Yves Perrier:
>>> Hi!
>>>
>>> Are there any action foreseen on the week-end of Feb 28th?
>>>
>>> It is voting day (on other subjects) but it is a day where field
>>> actions near the voting places are common: you reach people that
>>> actually vote (not all of course, as remote voting is common).
>>>
>>> I understand that we don't have the structure and man power to do this
>>> all over the place, but there may be an opportunity to team or to help
>>> other partners then.
>>>
>>> "P-26 didn't even dreamt it, Büpf does it. No to a P-26 power 10" [1]
>>>
>
>
>
>

> --
> *Raegan MacDonald*
> Senior EU Policy Manager
> Mozilla
>
> +32 486.301.096
> @ShmaeganM
> PGP 0xA57BD226