Help improve the Free Software Directory by adding new entries and updating existing ones. Every Friday we meet on IRC in the #fsf channel on irc.freenode.org.

Tens of thousands of people visit directory.fsf.org each month to discover free software. Each entry in the Directory contains a wealth of useful information, from basic category and descriptions, to providing detailed info about version control, IRC channels, documentation, and licensing info that has been carefully checked by FSF staff and trained volunteers.

When a user comes to the Directory, they know that everything in it is free software, has only free dependencies, and runs on a free OS. With over 16,000 entries, it is a massive repository of information about free software.

While the Directory has been and continues to be a great resource to the world for many years now, it has the potential to be a resource of even greater value. But it needs your help! And since it's a MediaWiki instance, it's easy for anyone to edit and contribute to the Directory.

This week we're back to adding new packages. While we recently surpassed the 16,000 entry milestone, there's still a long ways to go before the Directory is fully up to speed. In addition to working on adding individual packages, we'll be continuing our search for help with the Directory import project, which could help add thousands of packages in one blow.

If you are eager to help, and you can't wait or are simply unable to make it onto IRC on Friday, our participation guide will provide you with all the information you need to get started on helping the Directory today! There are also weekly Directory Meeting pages that everyone is welcome to contribute to before, during, and after each meeting.

This year at LibrePlanet 2018, you can hear talks by anthropologist and author Gabriella Coleman, free software policy expert and community advocate Deb Nicholson, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) senior staff technologist Seth Schoen, and of course, FSF founder and president Richard Stallman. Register for this year's conference here!

Gabriella (Biella) Coleman is best known in the free software community for her book Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking. Trained as an anthropologist, Coleman holds the Wolfe Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy at McGill University. Her scholarship explores the intersection of the cultures of hacking and politics, with a focus on the sociopolitical implications of the free software movement and the digital protest ensemble Anonymous, the latter in her book Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous.

Deb Nicholson is a free software policy expert and a passionate community advocate, notably contributing to GNU MediaGoblin and OpenHatch. She is the Community Outreach Director for the Open Invention Network, the world's largest patent non-aggression community, which serves the kernel Linux, GNU, Android, and other key free software projects. A perennial speaker at LibrePlanet, this is Nicholson's first keynote at the conference.

Seth David Schoen has worked at the EFF for over a decade, creating the Staff Technologist position and helping other technologists understand the civil liberties implications of their work, helping EFF staff better understand technology related to EFF's legal work, and helping the public understand what the products they use really do. Schoen last spoke at LibrePlanet in 2015, when he introduced Let's Encrypt, the automated, free software-based certificate authority.

FSF president Richard Stallman will present the Free Software Awards, and discuss pressing threats and important opportunities for software freedom.

LibrePlanet is an annual conference for people who care about their digital freedoms, bringing together software developers, policy experts, activists, and computer users to learn skills, share accomplishments, and tackle challenges facing the free software movement. The theme of this year's conference is Freedom. Embedded. In a society reliant on embedded systems -- in cars, digital watches, traffic lights, and even within our bodies -- how do we defend computer user freedom, protect ourselves against corporate and government surveillance, and move toward a freer world? LibrePlanet 2018 will feature sessions for all ages and experience levels.

For the fifth year in a row, LibrePlanet will be co-presented by the Free Software Foundation and MIT's Student Information Processing Board (SIPB), and we can't wait to see you all at this vibrant gathering of free software enthusiasts. The rest of the LibrePlanet program will be announced soon. The opening keynote at LibrePlanet 2017 was given by Kade Crockford, Director of the Technology for Liberty Program at the ACLU of Massachusetts, and the closing keynote was given by Sumana Harihareswara, founder of Changeset Consulting.

Registration for LibrePlanet is now open, and admission is gratis for Free Software Foundation members and students. Not a member? Join today for gratis admission to LibrePlanet and other exclusive benefits.

Photo credits: Deb Nicholson by Misty Smith CC-BY-NC-SA, Gabriella Coleman by Victor Jeffreys II CC-BY-NC-SA 2.0, Richard Stallman by Kori Feener CC-BY-SA, Seth David Schoen by Electronic Frontier Foundation CC-BY 3.0 US

We did it thanks to you. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) had another successful winter fundraiser this year. For us, 2017 ended on a high note, by blowing past our fundraising goal of $450,000 (USD). Thanks to your generosity, we have raised over $500,000 to power up the FSF and support software freedom in 2018.

What does $500,000 mean to the FSF? As we said in our emails and blog posts, these funds will turn into:

• Upgraded technical infrastructure for FSF staff and activities, as well as GNU projects;
• An updated fsf.org (yes, we're as excited as you!);
• Resources and education for those looking to be better free software citizens and users;
• Support for GPL compliance;
• Review and certification of hardware for our Respects Your Freedom program;
• Fighting for a DRM-free world with DefectiveByDesign;
• Resources concerning the dangers of proprietary software;
• LibrePlanet, the annual FSF conference;
• FSF staff and volunteer presence at events and conferences around the world.

To top it all off, we ended 2017 with over 5,000 FSF members -- more than ever before. As over 85% of our funding comes from donations and membership dues, these members are vital to the FSF. We are powered by donors, members, and volunteers like you -- all of the work of the FSF is accomplished with your help.

Again, thank you so much for your generosity. We're excited to see what we can do together in 2018.

Help improve the Free Software Directory by adding new entries and updating existing ones. Every Friday we meet on IRC in the #fsf channel on irc.freenode.org.

Tens of thousands of people visit directory.fsf.org each month to discover free software. Each entry in the Directory contains a wealth of useful information, from basic category and descriptions, to providing detailed info about version control, IRC channels, documentation, and licensing info that has been carefully checked by FSF staff and trained volunteers.

When a user comes to the Directory, they know that everything in it is free software, has only free dependencies, and runs on a free OS. With almost 16,000 entries, it is a massive repository of information about free software.

While the Directory has been and continues to be a great resource to the world for many years now, it has the potential to be a resource of even greater value. But it needs your help! And since it's a MediaWiki instance, it's easy for anyone to edit and contribute to the Directory.

This week's theme is organizing for the future. We'll be working on updating software that helps you organize and push for change, whether that's organizing your own life or leading a movement forward. We'll also be discussing how to organize and lead teams working on the Directory. Now is your chance to take charge and chart the future of the Directory!

If you are eager to help, and you can't wait or are simply unable to make it onto IRC on Friday, our participation guide will provide you with all the information you need to get started on helping the Directory today. There are also weekly Directory Meeting pages that everyone is welcome to contribute to before, during, and after each meeting.

Introduced just a few days ago, the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act of 2017 attempts to both renew and expand Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. You can read the bill here. While the NSA's surveillance practices are supposed to be reserved for non-Americans, they use this bill to justify monitoring the electronic communication of Americans associated with non-citizens. The FSF opposes this bill, both for its apparent violation of Americans' Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure, and because it enables bulk surveillance by US government intelligence agents.

In addition to renewing Section 702, this bill also aims to expand its scope. As it stands, the NSA can collect emails both to and from a non-US person not living in the US. The messages are stored in databases that can be searched and read without a warrant, even when Americans are involved in the communications. The proposed expansion of Section 702 would make this ugly little loophole permanent, only requiring a warrant for such searches once a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) or other intelligence agent has found enough information to launch a formal investigation.

Finally, the bill would renew an NSA practice that was abandoned last year: "about" collection. With this type of data collection, the NSA collects any digital communications -- not just communications that are "to" or "from" a targeted person, but simply "about" them (for example, an email between two other people that mentions the targeted person's name), making the collection even broader.

The Free Software Foundation sees this type of bulk surveillance as a freedom issue that can be resisted by using free software for email encryption, private Web browsing, and decentralized, trustworthy online systems. As the Internet has become increasingly centralized, more and more people have relinquished control over their computing to remotely hosted systems and to Service as a Software Substitute (SaaSS), remotely-hosted programs that exchange data with users to do computing that they could do on their own machines. In both cases, you cannot see what these servers are doing with your data -- and you have no way of verifying that the host is respecting your freedom. But these companies often submit to governments when they ask for your information, whether it's ostensibly to fight terrorism or to stop unauthorized copying. For more on why bulk surveillance is a software freedom issue and how to take action, read on.

Action in the United States

Those of you in the United States can call Congress today. Here's a call script:

Hello, I live in CITY, STATE. I am calling to urge you to vote against the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act of 2017. The NSA and FBI should not be allowed to surveil Americans without a warrant, or to carry out bulk surveillance of anyone. Thank you for your time.

Who should you call?

• Find your Representative and call them.
• Dial the House of Representatives' switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and they will connect you.

Action for everyone

• Read more about why mass surveillance is a software freedom issue and what you can do about it.
• Encrypting our personal communication makes bulk surveillance more difficult and protects the people we communicate with, so if you don't already encrypt your emails, check out Email Self-Defense, our beginner's guide to email encryption.