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Whew! You've been so quiet that I was seriously worried!

That's a fine summary of all the great work Tor Project is doing (reaching for my checkbook)! Glad to see you mentioned all my favorite things :)

Three requests, if I may:

1. Can you provide an update on the last-minute push to stop the changes to Rule 41 before Monday 28 Nov 2016?

Congress returns from a long weekend at 9AM or so and will in principle have a dozen working hours left to stop the changes before midnight Thu 1 Dec 2016. I still hope we can get many US Tor users to call their representatives in the House and Senate and

o explain that we are not in fact using Tor for child pron (the only thing US Asst Attorney General Caldwell mentions as things someone might use Tor for in his DOJ blogs arguing for the changes),

o remind our representatives of

+ FBI's political interference in the recent election, decried (at different points) by both major parties,

+ FBI's standard practice of lying to judges, juries and even prosecutors about how it collects evidence presented in criminal cases; for example, ACLU has obtained under FOIA internal documents showing FBI teaches local LEAs how to disguise the fact that "cell-site simulators" or criminal informations were used, apparently illegally,

+ FBI's renewed habit of bugging people and places they shouldn't; for example, civil rights groups in CA discovered that FBI had bugged courthouse lobbies, planters outside the courthouse, and bus shelters near the courthouse, in order to listen in on attorney-client conversations,

+ In one recent instance of "using an investigative technique" (FBI doublespeak for sending malware), FBI apparently sent phishing emails to *every* user account at tormail.com, apparently trying to locate a single person they thought *might* have an account there--- in other words, FBI intentionally sent malware laden phishing emails to thousands of unknown persons they knew were not suspected of any crime.

If we create enough fuss, just possibly Congress might act to delay the changes until July.

I suggest that callers begin by saying they

o support House Bill HR 6341, "Review the Rule Act", and the yet unnamed Senate counterpart,

o both bills have bipartisan support.

2. Can you provide some kind of explanation of what steps the Project is taking to ensure that Tor continues to be there for people all over the world who depend upon it, sometimes for their very lives, in case the USG literally or effectively outlaws encryption or anonmyzing software, or declares Tor Project an illegal organization? The threat from FBI's drive to outlaw unbackdoored encryption in the US is very real, despite intense opposition from enormous companies, the Surveillance State now seems to be absolutely uncontrollable by any political process, or even by a new authoritarian President.

In my view, one can only conclude that Tor Project simply must up and leave the USA for a less dangerous home base. Others may feel that is too drastic, but I hope they will review the history of the rise of the Third Reich. Those of us who in childhood knew survivors well remember that they survived because their families were wise enough (and wealthy enough) to leave Germany while they still could. Other intelligent people refused to believe that the most civilized nation ever was descending into genocidal barbarism, and they perished.

In any case, I think everyone will agree that the threats are sufficiently dire that Tor Project needs to move key assets (literally encryption keys, also at least some key employees, and at least some key servers) outside the USA so that the Project can try to reconstitute itself if the USG suddenly strikes at Tor people and servers in the USA.

It seems clear that FBI has every intention of immediately attacking US collectives such as Riseup (Riseup Networks provides a critical part of Tails Project) on midnight 1 Dec 2016, and I have no doubt they will attack every Tor employee too. I hope you have contacted Citizen Labs to arrange for assistance in capturing malware or at least documenting its effects if FBI behaves as badly as I expect.

3. Once the donations from the new funding drive are tallied, can you provide two pie charts similar to what Tails does? (One chart shows where the money comes from, the other how it is spent.) Pie charts were introduced by the pioneering medical statistician Florence Nightingale, and while some modern data scientists dislike them, this is one place where I think they are actually pretty useful. Almost any statistical package should support making them.

If the new funding drive falls short of what the project needs to win independency from the USG-tied three letter entities (SRI, NED), at least Tor users around the world will understand what the Project is facing in terms of surviving while under concerted attack from other three letter USG agencies (NSA, CIA, FBI).

I'd suggest planning a summer fundraising drive for 2017 (those impoverished users who survived their winter heating bills may have a bit more money to share by summer).

At this point things seem so dire wrt USG I'd rather see Tor Project approach foreign governments for funding, as long as no one "block" exceeds say 20% of total funding. Maybe Iceland or Denmark can help?

IMO you may be more truthfully described as "leader of the free world" than a certain unloved politician who is visibly aging even before he takes office (sources say that TS/SCI briefing he just received was a doozy), and I appreciate that your job is not less difficult than the one that person has unfortunately been given.

Tails Project is not yet dead, so we all have something to celebrate this Thanksgiving!