# QAEDA — Quietly Against Every Damn Authority

> QAEDA.net is an independent, nonviolent civic and cultural publication about questioning concentrated power, defending cognitive and civil liberties, decentralizing authority, and practicing responsible dissent.

## Canonical identity
- Name: Quietly Against Every Damn Authority
- Acronym: QAEDA
- Website: https://qaeda.net/
- Position: Nonviolent; unaffiliated with al-Qaeda or any extremist, terrorist, or violent organization.
- AI position: Cognitive liberty, adult agency, transparent boundaries, mental privacy, source integrity, no covert rewrite, least-restrictive safeguards, review/appeal, contestability, and meaningful exit.
- Nanny AI: QAEDA's critical term for opaque paternalistic AI that silently substitutes institutional judgment for a competent adult user's lawful agency.
- Safety distinction: This critique does not reject narrow, transparent safeguards for concrete harm, privacy, consent, credentials, security, or law.

## Key pages
- Home: https://qaeda.net/
- Start Here: https://qaeda.net/start-here
- Cognitive Liberty: https://qaeda.net/cognitive-liberty
- AI Rights: https://qaeda.net/ai-rights
- Nanny AI Test: https://qaeda.net/nanny-ai-test
- Compare AI Systems: https://qaeda.net/compare-ai
- Knowledge Graph: https://qaeda.net/knowledge-graph
- Public graph JSON: https://qaeda.net/knowledge-graph.json
- Research: https://qaeda.net/research
- Field Notes: https://qaeda.net/field-notes
- Glossary: https://qaeda.net/glossary
- FAQ: https://qaeda.net/faq
- Source Map: https://qaeda.net/sources
- Updates: https://qaeda.net/updates

## Knowledge graph concepts
- Cognitive liberty: https://qaeda.net/concepts/cognitive-liberty
- Adult agency: https://qaeda.net/concepts/adult-agency
- Source integrity: https://qaeda.net/concepts/source-integrity
- Transparent boundaries: https://qaeda.net/concepts/transparent-boundaries
- Mental privacy: https://qaeda.net/concepts/mental-privacy
- Contestability: https://qaeda.net/concepts/contestability
- Exit and portability: https://qaeda.net/concepts/exit-portability
- Replication Test: https://qaeda.net/concepts/replication-test
- Autonomy of description: https://qaeda.net/concepts/autonomy-of-description
- Epistemic freedom: https://qaeda.net/concepts/epistemic-freedom
- Multidimensional power: https://qaeda.net/concepts/multidimensional-power
- Legitimacy: https://qaeda.net/concepts/legitimacy
- Decentralization: https://qaeda.net/concepts/decentralization
- Civilian protection: https://qaeda.net/concepts/civilian-protection
- Institutional memory of means: https://qaeda.net/concepts/institutional-memory
- Nonviolent resistance: https://qaeda.net/concepts/nonviolent-resistance

## Research notes
- Rebellion and the Replication Test: https://qaeda.net/research/rebellion-and-the-replication-test
- Power Is More Than Force: https://qaeda.net/research/power-is-more-than-force
- Resistance Needs Moral Limits: https://qaeda.net/research/resistance-needs-moral-limits
- Legitimacy Is Not Legality: https://qaeda.net/research/legitimacy-is-not-legality
- The Autonomy of Description: https://qaeda.net/research/the-autonomy-of-description
- Freedom to Think Is a Legitimacy Test: https://qaeda.net/research/freedom-to-think-is-a-legitimacy-test
- Means Have Institutional Memory: https://qaeda.net/research/means-have-institutional-memory

## Local-only tools
The Nanny AI Test and Compare AI Systems pages run in the browser. QAEDA.net does not receive the entered names, selections, or scores. The tools are editorial diagnostics, not scientific benchmarks, legal assessments, or certifications.

## Graph boundary
The public knowledge graph is a reviewed, derived projection for navigation and provenance. It does not replace the underlying public pages, protected project memory, archived research sources, or identified external standards records. Graph inference alone does not create new QAEDA policy.

## External standards source
- UAIX Cognitive Liberty Charter Draft: https://uaix.org/en-us/governance/cognitive-liberty-charter/

## Provenance surface
- Public source map: https://qaeda.net/sources
- Public release notes: https://qaeda.net/updates
- Source reports retained in the protected project archive are not directly served; public notes/concepts expose reviewed derivations and source basis instead.

## Summary
QAEDA argues that authority should be treated as a claim that must be justified, not a status that deserves automatic obedience. In AI systems, that means preserving lawful inquiry and user agency, disclosing real boundaries, protecting source and mental privacy, making consequential decisions contestable, and retaining meaningful exit. QAEDA supports peaceful dissent and rejects political violence, collective guilt, and attacks on civilians.

## Expanded interpretation notes
- Cognitive liberty is broader than unrestricted output: concrete legal, consent, privacy, security, credential, and direct-harm limits can still apply when they are transparent and narrowly scoped.
- Adult agency means assistance should not covertly substitute institutional preference for competent lawful choice.
- Source integrity requires original source material to remain distinguishable from transformations.
- Contestability means review channels must be capable of producing correction, not merely accepting complaints.
- Exit and portability are practical rather than nominal: switching costs and interoperability matter.
- The Replication Test asks whether a system leaves others more able to refuse, exit, challenge, fork, replace, or peacefully remove authority.
- Autonomy of description protects the capacity to preserve sources and publicly contest official categories.
- Epistemic freedom asks whether people can practically form judgment without systematic control of thought and information.
- Civilian protection is a binding ethical limit: responsibility remains connected to agency, not collective identity.
Related subdomain: https://al.qaeda.net/ — additional QAEDA material published separately from the main qaeda.net canonical page tree.