10 Brilliant Moments
This year we saw thousands of people take part in our campaigns to defend our rights online.
I’d like to share 10 Awesome ORG Moments that you helped make happen in 2014:
1. The Blocked project was launched and we found out that filters were stopping Chaos Communications Congress from selling event tickets, Maureen from sharing a women’s rights blog and even Open Rights Group from providing a tool to find out about blocking!
2. The Department of Dirty video made everyone laugh. Some people even tried to complain to the Government about this new department, showing the power of effective satire.
3. Parody is something that can be used even more now that we’ve won it as a right in UK law! After years of campaigning with you on this issue, we can also have private copying and other sensible exceptions: a huge set of wins for our copyright work.
4. We were the voice of resistence on DRIP, appearing on every news channel from Sky to the BBC when the Government rewrote the idea of emergency by waiting three months to pass emergency legislation, and then doing it all in a week.
5. ORGCon was huge, completely selling out both days at the UK’s only digital rights conference. We had really positive feedback and enjoyed hearing lots of new voices, and getting to know you.
6. We hired our first legal director and she’s been amazing! Elizabeth’s helped us do exciting new things like take part in several legal interventions, including a judicial review of DRIP.
7. Thanks to our new legal work and persistent campaigning in challenging the secrecy of website bans, blocking orders are now more transparent. So far, BT, Sky and Virgin are all providing more information about the blocks.
8. We worked with a huge range of organisations this year, forming coalitions and partnerships with World Development Movement, Liberty, Amnesty and EFF on issues from TTIP to surveillance, making our collective campaigns all the stronger.
9. The Don’t Spy on Us coalition was launched and working as a group has helped us spread the message about mass surveillance. With 15 organisations signed on, over 500 MPs received at least one email about Don’t Spy on Us.
10. Thanks to hiring Pam, Elizabeth and Richard and our brilliant team, we had great press coverage all year round and have been able to get our message out to a wider audience.
It’s been a brilliant year and we couldn’t have done it without our supporters, people like you taking action and spreading the word.
The challenges just keep coming though. As we look to 2015, and the general election coming up we have to keep fighting to ensure that everyone’s rights are defended and promoted.
Can you join us by giving just £5 a month to make 2015 a better year for our rights?
We hope you have a wonderful Christmas and New Year!
With many thanks from,
Ruth and all the team at Open Rights Group