Strange to me how I feel strongly about the issues EFF covers, but always feel like they address a very niche population.

It's because they don't want to alienate potential allies by taking a stance on issues outside of their domain.

But I think many people might just end up saying, "yeah EFF, that is bad stuff, but there is worst stuff in this treaty which I'd rather focus on".

I think the approach Greenpeace Nederland took was better. They didn't try to force the discussion to be only about issues they cared about.

Well, I think those two approaches are complementary.

Greenpeace released the documents and left the discussion of specific problems within them to others, such as citizens rights movements and journalists.

EFF just happens to be one such party which specializes in digital rights, so it is only natural that they look at the papers released by Greenpeace, and pick the worrying parts within their domain of expertise up for discussion.

It is up to each citizen to decide which of the issues within these documents, brought up by journalists and others he cares deeply about.

That's my problem with EFF as well. They mostly concentrate on "human rights" in general, but they're still "electronic". Sounds like a dissonance in their mission.

It sounds like you're confused about their stated mission, which is:

>defending civil liberties in the digital world

They are not a broadly focused "human rights" organization like Amnesty International. They are very much focused on rights issues that are "electronic" in nature.

Do you mean, you wish they changed their communication approach to address the mainstream reader? I happen to agree.

What, like the EFF is a special-interest group that lobbies Washington to do things? You don't say. Just because they happen to cater to us doesn't change the fact that they're politics as usual.

And note: I've got nothing against politics as usual actually. Its unusual politics (see the government shutdown crisis, the lack of a budget since 2012, etc. etc.) that has me stressed out. Naturally, special interest groups represent the small niche communities of America (from NAACP, NRA, EFF, ACLU, and so forth) and then lobby our ideas to our politicians.

Its what they do, its their purpose.

Might I ask that we all just get along so that we can do something about what we don't like of the TTIP/TTP/etc. here? Seems to me that spending time navel gazing about what EFF/FFTF/etc. did right or wrong seems to be a good way to torpedo things. (Sure, I want things to be Done Right, and I don't sign petitions that are sorta right but done wrong, but politics is not going to be pure, frankly.)