User:Brettgib3399/Please leave this line alone (Communication Blackout 2015)

Communication Blackout 2015 is a mediated mobilization campaign designed to build awareness and help put a stop to metadata tracking throughout Canada. This campaign will aim to impulse the citizens of Canada to take part in the final campaign act, which will take place on December 16th, 2015. For the final campaign act all movement participants will be partaking in a 24 hour fast from all forms of electronic communications.

Definition: A Canadian campaign to help grow awareness about "metadata tracking" throughout the country. On December 16th, 2015, Canada will hold its first every communication blackout. Through social media and other sources of alternative media, this campaign will strive to gain a large participant level. Building a large number of followers will allow this campaign to continually feed the Canadian citizens important information about metadata, and for the first time ever, totally blackout all electronic forms of communication throughout the country. In doing so, not only will the population become more educated on the constant invasion of privacy, it will also go a long well in hopefully eliminating metadata tracking in Canada as whole sometime in the near future.

Purpose:

Through this communication blackout, we truly believe we can create a social movement large enough to dramatically increase awareness throughout Canada. In educating Canadian citizens on metadata tracking, we are confident that we can continually grow this campaign and embrace a social movement that can truly make a difference in protecting our privacy.

Issues Correlated with the Cause:

The three most prevalent issues that come to the surface are; the infringement on human rights, the decision to operate above the law, and the low awareness level about the issue throughout Canada. One major red flag when it comes to metadata tracking in Canada is the breach of human rights that it causes. The Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms states “Section 8 does not apply to every search or seizure. Rather, the right focuses on the action being unreasonable on the basis that it violates the expectation of privacy that a reasonable individual would have. The Supreme Court of Canada found that the reasonable expectation of privacy protected by Section 8 of the Charter applies to modern communications technologies such as text messages, even if the data in question is located on a third-party server”(Constitution Acts). The Canadian Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms clearly declares all forms of modern media are to be protected with the reasonable expectation of privacy. Metadata tracking defies the right that all Canadians are supposed to be protected by, breaking the law and leaving all “our movements, social relationships, habits, meetings, personal preferences, with whom we communicate and for how long, the websites we visit” (Weston, G), all at risk for the government to collect and analyze.

The next major issue is the low level of awareness that is associated with metadata tracking throughout Canada. Metadata tracking is becoming increasingly prevalent throughout Canada, and it is extremely alarming how little awareness there is on the topic throughout the country. Susan Landau, a mathematician and former Sun Microsystems engineer had this to say about the awareness towards metadata tracking. “The public doesn’t understand, it’s much more intrusive than content. The government can learn immense amounts of proprietary information by studying who you call, and who they call. If you can track that, you know exactly what is happening—you don’t need the content.” Susan is stressing the point that metadata tracking has gotten a lot worse than the general public realizes. She also proclaims that the public doesn’t grasp a true understanding of metadata and the harms that are associated with it.

Ways to Avoid Metadata Tracking:

-	Get a Virtual Private Network (VPN), an access point that encrypts your data

-	Increase your Email Security

-	Encrypt all IMs and Chats

-	Secure your Mobile Device

These are four fairly simple steps that can be used to help protect your personal information. By no means are any of these solutions perfect, however, they can go a long way in preventing further invasions on your personal information.