Open Rights Group and impact litigation

This case not only marks a chance to make a change for better—it also marks a new stage in ORG’s growth as an organisation that makes the Internet safe for human habitation. 

But we can’t do it without your help.

I was working for the Electronic Frontier Foundation when I helped found the Open Rights Group. EFF is an American digital rights group with a long tradition of winning important fights, using a variety of innovative tactics — but one of the most effective tools in its toolchest was “impact litigation.”

Impact litigation uses consitutions as a back-door into the legislative system. The rich and powerful can buy themselves any number of unjust laws through the front door, or even commit crime by impunity by declaring themselves to be above the law.

That’s where impact litigation comes in. Rather than trying to get 20,000,000 or so voters to scare the pants off of elected representatives and force them to do what’s right for the people they represent (rather than the powerful interests by whom they’ve been captured), an impact litigator asks a judge to find the conduct unconstitutional, and thus illegal. At the stroke of a pen, a bad law can be killed in its tracks.

Impact litigation can be costly. Top lawyers don’t come cheap, and the government has the power to drag out legal action for years, trying to bankrupt its opposition.

But impact litigation can win victories that simply can’t be won in any other way. In areas where rallies, phone calls, letter-writing and logic hold no sway, a single, well-placed legal action can move mountains.

You’ll have seen that the European Court of Human Rights is forcing the UK government to reply to the case that we brought over GCHQ’s warrantless, lawless, mass-scale Internet spying. With this court action, we have to chance to cut through all the self-serving secrecy and scare-stories about terrorist bogeymen, and straight to the heart of the matter: the right of the law-abiding people of all nations to go about their daily lives unmolested, unsurveilled, undocumented and free.

That’s where you come in. Supporting a full-time legal director is a major step for ORG, a new tactic in our arsenal, a way to make a real and lasting difference.

We can’t do it without your support

Can you help ORG carry on using impact litigation by joining today?

https://www.openrightsgroup.org/join/help-hire-orgs-legal-director

The more people who join ORG in the next week, the more time the new Legal Director will be able to spend defending your digital rights in the courts.

Lots of people have already joined ORG this month already so just 60 (Update – 32) new supporters would take the Legal Director would make the post full-time.

0 new supporters = 4 days a week
60 32 new supporters = 5 days a week

Can you join Open Rights Group today?
https://www.openrightsgroup.org/join/help-hire-orgs-legal-director

Many thanks,

Cory Doctorow

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Cory Doctorow
Co-founder and Advisory Council Member
Open Rights Group