Dear Members of ISOC-CH, As you may have heard in the news, the Swiss Parliament has recently passed a new law regarding the "information services", meaning the espionage and counter-espionage services. This new law significantly extends the powers of those services and also enables them to carry out mass surveillance in certain situations. A broad coalition, including actors on the left and on the right of the political spectrum, has been formed to collect signatures to force a referendum on this law. As you know, ISOC-CH is opposed to mass surveillance, so we have joined the coalition in question. You will find attached the signature forms for the referendum. In a nutshell, the arguments against the new law include the following: * It allows disproportionate and unnecessary invasions of privacy. * It institutes a mass surveillance regime. * It allows measures that are dangerous and can be counter-productive, such as installation of Trojans developed outside of Switzerland. * It is not needed: existing criminal laws and the existing powers of the cantonal police forces are sufficient to attain the stated goals of the law: combating terrorism, organized crime, and protecting the security of Switzerland and its citizens. This is just a very high level summary of the arguments against the law. Further details can be found at: https://www.lrens.ch/ https://www.nachrichtendienstgesetz.ch/ http://etat-fouineur.ch/lrens/ http://schnueffelstaat.ch/ndg/ https://www.partipirate.ch/2015/09/24/non-a-la-lrens-mobilisons-nous-pour-le -referendum/ http://www.bluewin.ch/fr/infos/suisse/2015/9/28/referendum-lance-par-une--al liance-contre-l-etat-f.html The text of the law itself is at: https://www.admin.ch/opc/fr/federal-gazette/2015/6597.pdf Best, Richard