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Social movements online: "The right to free speech should apply with full force on the internet"

Today’s social movements need freedom of speech and freedom to organise, even though much of that activity now takes place online. So what can we do to combat digital surveillance?

By AN INTERVIEW
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Protests against Trump's Muslim Ban in early 2017 were largely organised online. Ted Eytan:Flickr. Some rights reserved (3).jpg
Protests against Trump's Muslim Ban in early 2017 were largely organised online. Ted Eytan:Flickr. Some rights reserved (3).jpg

Protests against Trump's Muslim Ban in early 2017 were largely organised online. Image: Ted Eytan/Flickr. Some rights reserved.

Matt Cagle is a Technology and Civil Liberties Policy Attorney at the ACLU of Northern California. A lot of his work relates to issues raised by new technologies in Silicon Valley, but he also works on surveillance issues at the local level by law enforcement agencies such as the police.

This interview is part of Right to Protest, a partnership project with human rights organisations CELS and INCLO, with support from the ACLU, examining the power of protest and its fundamental role in democratic society. 

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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0