Re: [tor-talk] Non-free country law preventing Tor from getting donations

[Mirimir <mirimir@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 06/15/2014 03:17 PM, Joe Btfsplk wrote:
> On 6/15/2014 2:08 PM, Mirimir wrote:
>> The law is the law, and (acting openly) the choices are compliance, or
>> noncompliance on principle. But see above.
> No, the law is often temporary, until someone has the guts to stand up
> (100's, maybe 1000's of times, in the last 150 yrs, in U.S. alone).
> This & many countries were founded entirely on standing up against
> repression; by "revolutionists."

Yes, laws may change after people stand up against them. But sometimes
they don't. We still have huge taxes on whiskey, for example ;)

But that's what I said above. People can comply, or stand up and refuse
to comply.

> Hell, in the U.S., we celebrate & honor revolutionists - of the most
> extreme kind - every 4th of July.  Politicians give speeches all over
> the U.S., about how great the revolutionary militants were.

Well, first they refused to comply. Some of them did so flagrantly, in
order to precipitate a crisis. Then they waited for King George's
decision. It was only after he decided against the colonists, and sent
more troops, that serious fighting started.

> But then somehow, if in current day, people talk about changing the
> status quo - for really important issues, like civil rights, they're
> branded militants that need to be silenced by any means necessary.

The fight for desegregation in the US was explicitly modeled on Gandhi's
non-violent resistance strategy that led to independence for India. I
don't think that "militants" is accurate for them. It was
segregationists who were violent.

But I do entirely agree that they were revolutionaries :)

> "It was OK for the founding fathers to be extreme militants, but no one
> can do it after that, or they'll go to jail."

Actually, punishment by oppressors (being beaten or even martyred, going
to jail, etc) is typically part of the process.

> I'm not saying Tor Project (by themselves) should start a revolution
> over embargo laws.  But that scenario is similar to historical cases (in
> some respects).  Women couldn't vote; black people had to use different
> restrooms, water fountains.  I personally saw that growing up in the
> South.  On all those things & hundreds more, someone / some group had to
> stand up - & do more than send an email, that can be deleted by a
> flunkie, for anything to change.

Well, I do appreciate that this is not part of the Tor Project's
mission. However, they do provide the means (Tor) for handling such
donations discretely ;)

>> As long as funding doesn't come with strings, there's no problem with
>> accepting it.
> Very true - more so w/ people already using Tor or those that would
> never look at how Tor is funded.
> But if some sayings were ever true, it's, "Perception is reality," and
> "You're judged by the company you keep."

Let me rephrase that. If it's OK for the Tor Project to be heavily
funded by the US government, it should be OK to accept donations from
some liberal in Iran.

> People on the outside looking in, see an organization, whose primary
> purpose is to provide means to protect privacy, *especially* from gov't
> agencies, but the major portion of their funding comes FROM a gov't agency.
> 
> I'm sorry - but no matter how much I or anyone else loves Tor, to many
> "thinking" outsiders, it would appear quite fishy (if they know that
> funding fact).  "It just don't look right."
> I think it's fishy - _& I like Tor_.  If I'd actually known that fact
> before I used it, I'd have thought something wasn't right.
> 
> It may be, if they really want to grow the Tor user base (continually),
> it may have to appeal to a broader audience, for many of whom the
> funding source issue may well be a stumbling block.

They really ought to become an explicitly global organization. Having
their foot nailed to the floor in the US is ridiculous.
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