5th of July Foundation recommends watching – or listening to – Edward Snowden’s Alternative Christmas Message, delivered on Britain’s Channel 4. It is meant as an alternative to the Queen’s speech. His message is short, not even two minutes long, so don’t hesitate!
Channel 4’s own original video is found here, but it is only available for one month. There are numerous other sources however, just search the web. This is from the YouTube channel of AP, Associated Press.
We started talking about the 5th of July Foundation in 2012 after a resolution was passed in the United Nations that stated that freedom of expression must be as well protected on the Internet as outside. We found it hypocritical since two major forces behind the resolution was Sweden and the U.S., nations that were known to intercept and scan (at least!) virtually all Internet traffic that passed the borders of the country, before storing and analysing huge amounts of that data.
In Februray 2013 we signed the founding documents of the 5th of July Foundation. Little did we know that a certain Edward Snowden had already struck up secret conversations with journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras (who also filmed Snowden’s message above). In June 2013 The Guardian published the first documents from Snowden’s leak.
At the same time we launched a VPN service, Integrity.st (so far only sold via Swedish “free speech ISP” Bahnhof, but getting closer to a more public release).
As Internet veterans, entrepreneurs, activists and thinkers we knew a lot about surveillance of communications. But the extent shown by Snowden’s leak was unexpected.
We have lingered behind the scenes so far but will be more public from now. We will launch both “for pay” and free services for the public that enhances Security, Privacy and Liberty on the Internet. Services from a trustable source. Such are needed.
It is 2014. Stay tuned!
