@douginamug I agree that is really relevant and well written.

I would have been very interested to hear from some of the (surprisingly many) people who signed the letter, what they think about this.

Could it be that some of them signed it without having read it carefully themselves, just joining in and trusting it was good because they saw so many others had signed already? I suspect that is what happened. Not that it's any excuse, it's pretty important to know what you are signing.