Free Software, Surveillance and Knowledge Commons - Lok Sabha Elections 2019

Hello Everyone,

Our Free Software Ideology has been added in Election Manifesto by Communist Party of India - Marxist (CPIM) This is a great step for us in our movement in reaching the current politics with our ideology. We need to continue the struggle forward.

The challenge with our movement is about connecting our idealogy and theories with common people. To sustain our actions and reach greater masses, we need to have policy level interventions and increase the pace with which decisions are implemented

Points that has been added Regarding Free Software, Survillence and Digital Commons :-

  1. Promoting Free Software and Other such new technologies, which are free from Monopoly Ownership through Copyrights or Patents. Knowledge Commons should be promoted across disciplines, like biotechnology and drug discovery.
  2. Stop Bulk Surveillance by state agencies under Section 69. There should be clear provisions and judicial supervision of any surveillance that violates citizens privacy.
  3. Enact Data Privacy Laws that protect the people against appropriation/misuse of users private data for commercial use.
  4. Curb Monopolies that use either telecom such as Jio/Airtel/Vodafone or internet service platforms such as Google, Facebook, etc.

This is the first time a Political Party has considered to take a close look into these issues and moved forward to work on it.

As a Free Software Movement, we should carry on our work in all sections with the added advantage of Political interventions in Free Software, Monopoly in the recent times.

Keeping in mind the current Socio-Economic and Political situations, we are entering a different ground in preserving the Knowledge Commons and wage a battle against Digital Monopoly and Surveillance Capitalism

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Thanks & Regards,
Balaji,
FSFTN