John,

Things feel pretty scary right now. Many of us live in states that instituted shelter-in-place or stay-at-home orders this week. This is unprecedented.

In order to slow down the spread of COVID-19 and to save lives we need to listen to the warnings from medical professionals. All of us at Fight for the Future are committed to doing everything in our power as an organization to encourage people to do their part and help save lives.

We’re also committed to thinking critically about the actions governments and corporations are taking and making sure they don’t make this situation worse by increasing surveillance, censoring speech, or implementing other authoritarian policies that are not medically advised and put us in danger.

That’s why we’ve launched TakeThisSeriously.org, a new website for people to pledge their commitment to fighting the spread of COVID-19 and attacks on our human rights and civil liberties. Government officials and corporations are only going to listen if we can get tens of thousands of people to sign this pledge. That’s why our next step is to produce a high quality video to help it reach as many people as possible. Can you donate to help us raise $5,000 to make a video and recruit 100,000 people to pledge to protect our essential rights?

All around the world, governments and powerful companies are taking advantage of our fear by pressing for drastic, authoritarian actions that will have little or no impact on public health:

Governments are talking with corporations like Google, Facebook, and Clearview AI to collect data from our phones to track our real-time movements (and use that data for who-knows-what in the future)¹
Web platforms and governments are censoring information and cracking down on freedom of expression at a time when we need more information, more transparency, and when people should be able to ask questions and debate the decisions that are being made^2,3,4,5
The U.S. Department of Justice has asked for approval to detain people indefinitely without a trial, and to suspend court proceedings⁶

Things are changing quickly, and we support medically-necessary actions being taken to keep us all safe. But increasing dangerous surveillance, silencing speech, and suspending the rule of law put us all at greater risk. Will you fight with us to protect our essential freedoms?

DONATE

We’re working to make TakeThisSeriously.org go far and wide so that people around the world, like you, can take action to protect your rights. Your support will help create and share a video so this page has the biggest reach possible. A video will help reach people who might not read a website, and it can help break down the points and make it easy for everyone to understand and engage.

If you can, please chip in to fight with us for our essential freedoms.

Together,

Caitlin from Fight for the Future

Footnotes:

1. Business Insider: https://www.businessinsider.com/google-facebook-discuss-helping-government-track-coronavirus-spread-2020-3

2. Buzzfeed News: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/china-tencent-wechat-yy-censorship-coronavirus

3. Whistleblower: https://whistleblower.org/in-the-news/press-watch-mike-pences-coronavirus-gag-order-is-an-act-of-war-against-the-media-which-needs-to-return-fire/

4. The Verge: https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/17/21184445/facebook-marking-coronavirus-posts-spam-misinformation-covid-19

5. Tech Crunch: https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/18/twitter-coronavirus-covid-19-misinformation-policy/

6. The Hill: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/488821-doj-seeks-new-emergency-powers-amid-coronavirus-pandemic

Fight for the Future works to protect your rights in the digital age.