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Meeting the Privacy Movement
Dissent in the Digital Age
In the summer of 2013, whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked classified documents of the United States intelligence organization NSA to the press. The documents, of which the magnitude and scope were unprecedented, shocked many and caused an outrage among privacy activists worldwide.
At the time of the first publications a small group of individuals, consisting of security researcher Jacob Appelbaum, journalist Glenn Greenwald, WikiLeaks editor Sarah Harrison, and documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras, stood by Snowden’s side. This group became part of a larger group of privacy activists, in which they started to take on the role of movement leaders.
They are now focal points in a large web of privacy activists and organizations that as a whole forms the privacy movement, which shares Berlin as a central meeting place. The movement has three distinct ways in which it expresses dissent: whistleblowing, art, and protest.
Meeting the Privacy Movement. Dissent in the Digital Age identifies four elements that are characteristic to this movement: composition, leadership, meeting places, and dissent. With the help of social movement theory and these four elements it is explained how the group that initially helped Snowden fits into a larger group of privacy activists.
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