Organizing for Digital Rights in the Pacific Northwest

Recently I traveled to Portland, Oregon to speak at the PDX People’s Digital Safety Fair, meet up with five groups in the Electronic Frontier Alliance, and attend BSides PDX 2024. Portland’s first ever Digital Safety Fair was a success and five of our six EFA organizations in the area participated: Personal Telco Project, Encode Justice Oregon, PDX Privacy, TA3M Portland, and Community Broadband PDX. I was able to reaffirm our support with these organizations, and table with most of them as they met local people interested in digital rights. We distributed EFF toolkits as a resource, and we made sure EFA brochures and stickers had a presence on all their tables. A few of these organizations were also present at BSides PDX, and it was great seeing them being leaders in the local infosec and cybersecurity community.

PDX Privacy’s mission is to bring about transparency and control in the acquisition and use of surveillance systems in the Portland Metro area, whether personal data is captured by the government or by commercial entities. Transparency is essential to ensure privacy protections, community control, fairness, and respect for civil rights.

TA3M Portland is an informal meetup designed to connect software creators and activists who are interested in censorship, surveillance, and open technology.

The Oregon Chapter of Encode Justice, the world’s first and largest youth movement for human-centered artificial intelligence, works to mobilize policymakers and the public for guardrails to ensure AI fulfills its transformative potential. Its mission is to ensure we encode justice and safety into the technologies we build.

(l to r) Pictured here with the PDXPrivacy’s Seth, Boaz and new President, Nate. Pictured with Chris Bushick, legendary Portland privacy advocate of TA3M PDX. Pictured with the leaders of Encode Justice Oregon.

There’s growing momentum in the Seattle and Portland areas

Community Broadband PDX’s focus is on expanding the existing dark fiber broadband network in Portland to all residents, creating an open-source model where the city owns the fiber, and it’s controlled by local nonprofits and cooperatives, not large ISP’s.

Personal Telco is dedicated to the idea that users have a central role in how their communications networks are operated. This is done by building our own networks that we share with our communities, and by helping to educate others in how they can, too.

At the People’s Digital Safety Fair I spoke in the main room on the campaign to bring high-speed broadband to Portland, which is led by Community Broadband PDX and the Personal TelCo Project. I made a direct call to action for those in attendance to join the campaign. My talk culminated with, “What kind of ACTivist would I be if I didn’t implore you to take an ACTion? Everybody pull out your phones.” Then I guided the room to the website for Community Broadband PDX and to the ‘Join Us’ page where people in that moment signed up to join the campaign, spread the word with their neighbors, and get organized by the Community Broadband PDX team. You can reach out to them at cbbpdx.org and personaltelco.net. You can get in touch with all the groups mentioned in this blog with their hyperlinks above, or use our EFA allies directory to see who’s organizing in your area. 

(l to r) BSidesPDX 2024 swag and stickers. A photo of me speaking at the People’s Digital Privacy Fair on broadband access in PDX. Pictured with Jennifer Redman, President of Community Broadband PDX and former broadband administrator for the city of Portland, OR. A picture of the Personal TelCo table with EFF toolkits printed and EFA brochures on hand. Pictured with Ted, Russell Senior, and Drew of Personal Telco Project. Lastly, it’s always great to see a member and active supporter of EFF interacting with one of our EFA groups.

It’s very exciting to see what members of the EFA are doing in Portland! I also went up to Seattle and met with a few organizations, including one now in talks to join the EFA. With new EFA friends in Seattle, and existing EFA relationships fortified, I’m excited to help grow our presence and support in the Pacific Northwest, and have new allies with experience in legislative engagement. It’s great to see groups in the Pacific Northwest engaged and expanding their advocacy efforts, and even greater to stand by them as they do!

Electronic Frontier Alliance members get support from a community of like-minded grassroots organizers from across the US. If your group defends our digital rights, consider joining today. https://efa.eff.org