The US government has betrayed the internet. We need to take it back

[Os Cangaceiros]

Government and industry have betrayed the internet (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/internet), and us.

By subverting the internet at every level to make it a vast, multi-layered and robust surveillance (http://www.theguardian.com/world/surveillance) platform, the NSA (http://www.theguardian.com/world/nsa) has undermined a fundamental social contract. The companies that build and manage our internet infrastructure, the companies that create and sell us our hardware and software, or the companies that host our data: we can no longer trust them to be ethical internet stewards.

This is not the internet the world needs, or the internet its creators envisioned. We need to take it back.

And by we, I mean the engineering community.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/05/government-betrayed-internet-nsa-spying

Obviously not from a left standpoint but Bruce Schneier usually has interesting things to say about the internet and internet security

[Red Commissar]

It's a good proposal, but I don't see engineers acting in the same way that say longshoremen would do in the US. If all of them united with a common purpose then change could be possible here- but I don't think there's any meaningful common purpose among them- some are focused on their jobs, some might be in a job which relies on the perpetuation of these systems, and others might perversely believe in the security apparatus's objectives. They can do something, but they need more unity first... this is pretty much the story of any work place though.