Digital Rights Matter Day: Coming soon
Help us hit 3000 supporters!
It’s only March but we’ve already had some great successes:
- We halted an attempt to re-introduce the Snoopers’ Charter.
Four Lords tried to insert the next of the discredited Communications Data Bill into a seperate Bill, as a last minute ‘ammendment’. We raised awareness of this sneaky abuse of democratic process, with our members writing and calling Lords before the big debate. The amendments have now been withdrawn but we’ll keep watch in case they try this again.
- We opposed a national ID register for Scotland.
The Scottish government announced plans that would create a national ID register in a little-publicised consultation. We galvanised our supporters to respond, alerted the media and met with MSPs to make sure these plans are not passed without a full political debate. - We launched ORG Scotland
We are hiring a new position to shape the future of ORG’s work in Scotland and we’ve been in Scotland the last few weeks meeting grassroots activists, academics, lawyers and politicians to hear what they want for digital rights in Scotland.
All this shows exactly what we can do when we get the momentum going.
Our campaign for General Election in May, is our most ambitious yet – seeking to engage and inspire the next generation of MPs to commit to defending the Internet.
So far this year we’ve had 180 new members join to help kick off our election campaign:
- ORG’s ‘Civil Liberties’ Hustings will be going ahead in April in Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff and Manchester. We’ve now got other local groups on board including branches of 38 Degrees and Friends of the Earth.
The one time that we know that politicians are likely to listen to us is during the run up to a General Election when candidates want to know which issues voters care about. Questioning candidates face to face is more effective than email, social media or letters. So we’re organising political hustings so that we can ask candidates directly for their views on a range of human rights issues. These hustings are not just about digital rights because we think its important for candidates to understand that digital rights are human rights; they are not a fringe issue, and protecting them is vital for our freedom. Stay tuned for confirmed venues and dates in the next few weeks!
- ORG are excited to be working with Democracy Club to improve how candidates, campaigners and voters communicate! We’re building a website that aggregates questions from organisations and puts them to candidates in batches. You’ll be able to see what parliamentary candidates in your constituencies have said on a wide range of issues – and we also aim to help candidates manage the flood of correspondence landing in their inboxes between now and May.
We’re proud of all our supporters and activists have helped us achieve.
On Thursday 19th March we’re giving our membership and campaign funding one big boost: Take part in #digitalrightsmatter day.
We’re asking people to join ORG on March 19th to help us to get 300 new members so far this year, taking us to over 3,000 in total. For people to take notice, we need to all share it together at once.
Celebrate your membership of ORG and raise awareness of our one-day fundraiser for our campaign work by signing up to our Thunderclap.
HOW TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT:
- Support our action day via Twitter, Facebook, and other social media, and get the word out to your friends and followers to do the same.
- Tell us why our work is relevant to you using #digitalrightsmatter. We’ll tweet & share your stories on the day.
- Watch as everyone’s messages are simultaneously shared.
- Can you help ORG and give out flyers to promote our work? Share at your local hackspace or craftspace or office? Just contact ruth@openrightsgroup.org and I’ll send you some in the post.
- Ask a friend to join