Just went to their website to make sure I had the most up to date live release and they are on strike today (Patriot day in the States) to protest against the NSA spying on American citizens. Good on them I say 

 

To Quote their website (which I hope they don't mind) :-

 

Today, September 11, 2013 ("Patriot Day" in the United States) Ross-Tech is "On Strike".    
We will not answer phone calls or e-mails.    We will not conduct business of any sort.     Why?    We are taking part in a nation-wide protest against completely unconscionable (not to mention unconstitutional) actions by the government of the United States.

We all have the 4th Amendment right to be secure in our papers, effects and lives, including electronic transmissions, until and unless there is a warrant issued detailing a specific alleged offense and identifying the specific items to be searched for or seized. This includes our emails, it includes our phone calls, text messages and the location data generated as a necessity to provide us with mobile services, which we did not consent to be used for any purpose other than providing those services. Yet this constitutionally guaranteed right is being violated on a continuous basis by the NSA, and as we've found out more recently, our government has been paying AT&T (and presumably all the other phone companies) to keep records of all phone calls all the way back to 1987. These records are accessible via "administrative subpoenas" issued not by a judge, but by law enforcement agencies such as the DEA.

These gross violations of privacy and constitutionally guaranteed rights are unacceptable to me, the owner of Ross-Tech.  It is also quite clear to me that our government will not stop these kinds of violations until we, the people demand that they do. There are those who say we should simply vote for different politicians, but we've seen this simply this doesn't work; every time we try, it's "meet the new boss, same as the old boss."   There are those who think we should all simply Go Galt, but I'm not quite ready to do that just yet, at least not permanently.  Instead I've decided that I and the business I own will "go dark" for one day on September 11th; I will not engage (or allow my business to engage) in any electronic communications whatsoever.   I will not engage in any form of commerce either.   I and my business are "On Strike" because I cannot sit idly by while our government engages uses methods that would make the old East German Stasi green with envy.

If you agree that the current state of affairs in the United States is incompatible with the fundamental principles of liberty that this country was founded on, then I urge you to do likewise.   Turn your cell-phone OFF and leave it off for the rest of the day.   If you have a website, take it off-line.    Don't use the internet at all today.    Try not to engage in any commerce; in other words, don't buy anything and don't sell anything.  If enough people do this, the politicians will notice.   They can't monitor phone calls we don't make, analyze e-mails we don't send, or tax money we don't spend.

Will this work?   I don't know whether there will be enough participation for it to be effective this time.   But we have to try something, and we have to start somewhere.   Heck, it would be a big step forward if we could just get the scoundrels that make up our political class to stop lying about what they're doing:

wow yeah that'll show them :wonder:

and at the letterhead the give their phone number