stopwatching.usStop Watching Us

signatures so far 125,000 1:30am EST 14/6/2013 It will be shocking for me if American citizens allow this to continue. Ai WeiWei Unwarranted government surveillance is an intrusion on basic human rights that threatens the very foundations of a democratic society. Tim Berners Lee Wired Democracy requires an informed citizenry in order to function properly, and transparency and accountability are essential parts of that. That means knowing what our government is doing to us, in our name. Bruce Schneier Schneier.com No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks. UN Declaration on Human Rights Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. Benjamin Franklin [The National Security Agency's] capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. Senator Frank Church, 1975 . The revelations about the National Security Agency's surveillance apparatus, if true, represent a stunning abuse of our basic rights. We demand the U.S. Congress reveal the full extent of the NSA's spying programs. Read the full letter to US Congress Dear Members of Congress, We write to express our concern about recent reports published in the Guardian and the Washington Post, and acknowledged by the Obama Administration, which reveal secret spying by the National Security Agency (NSA) on phone records and Internet activity of people in the United States. The Washington Post and the Guardian recently published reports based on information provided by an intelligence contractor showing how the NSA and the FBI are gaining broad access to data collected by nine of the leading U.S. Internet companies and sharing this information with foreign governments. As reported, the U.S. government is extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person's movements and contacts over time. As a result, the contents of communications of people both abroad and in the U.S. can be swept in without any suspicion of crime or association with a terrorist organization. Leaked reports also published by the Guardian and confirmed by the Administration reveal that the NSA is also abusing a controversial section of the PATRIOT Act to collect the call records of millions of Verizon customers. The data collected by the NSA includes every call made, the time of the call, the duration of the call, and other "identifying information" for millions of Verizon customers, including entirely domestic calls, regardless of whether those customers have ever been suspected of a crime. The Wall Street Journal has reported that other major carriers, including AT&T and Sprint, are subject to similar secret orders. This type of blanket data collection by the government strikes at bedrock American values of freedom and privacy. This dragnet surveillance violates the First and Fourth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, which protect citizens' right to speak and associate anonymously, guard against unreasonable searches and seizures, and protect their right to privacy. We are calling on Congress to take immediate action to halt this surveillance and provide a full public accounting of the NSA's and the FBI's data collection programs. We call on Congress to immediately and publicly: Enact reform this Congress to Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, the state secrets privilege, and the FISA Amendments Act to make clear that blanket surveillance of the Internet activity and phone records of any person residing in the U.S. is prohibited by law and that violations can be reviewed in adversarial proceedings before a public court; Create a special committee to investigate, report, and reveal to the public the extent of this domestic spying. This committee should create specific recommendations for legal and regulatory reform to end unconstitutional surveillance; Hold accountable those public officials who are found to be responsible for this unconstitutional surveillance. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Organizations Individuals Businesses Selected Signatories: Access American Library Association Americans for Limited Government Americans for Job Security Bill of Rights Defense Committee Calyx Institute Campaign for Liberty Center for Democracy and Technology Center for Media Justice Centro de Cultura Luiz Freire Competitive Enterprise Institute Consumer Watchdog CREDO Action Daily Kos Demand Progress Defending Dissent Detroit Digital Justice Coalition Electronic Frontier Foundation Electronic Frontiers Australia EngageMedia Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA) Fight for the Future Free Press Free Software Foundation Freedom of the Press Foundation Freedom Works Generation Justice GNOME Greenpeace USA Guardian Project Internet Archive League of Technical Voters Learning About Multimedia Project Liberty Coalition LibrarianShipwreck Main Street Project Mansfield North Central Ohio Tea Party Association Media Alliance Media Mobilizing Project MoveOn.org Mozilla National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers National Coalition Against Censorship National Security Counselors Occupy Wall Street NYC Open Technology Institute at New America Foundation Participatory Politics Foundation PolitiHacks Praxis Project Privacy and Access Council of Canada Privacy Camp Progressive Change Campaign Committee Progressive Librarians Guild Public Knowledge R Street Institute Restore America's Voice RevolutionTruth Rights Working Group Rocky Mountain Civil Liberties Association RootsAction.org Tactical Tech TechFreedom Tenth Amendment Center The Other 98% Tor Urbana Champaign Independent Media Center World Wide Web Foundation John Perry Barlow Britt Blaser Gabriella Coleman John Cusack Cory Doctorow Daniel Ellsberg Dan Gillmor John Gilmore Xeni Jardin Birgitta Jónsdóttir Sina Khanifar Derek Khanna Brian Knappenberger Rebecca Mackinnon David Moore Alexis Ohanian Laura Poitras Naval Ravikant Wil Wheaton Amicus BoingBoing Control Shift Labs DuckDuckGo DSLReports.com Gandi.net Ghostery Namecheap NodeWest TechStars ThoughtWorks Personal Democracy Media reddit Rocket Science See everyone who has asked to be listed. 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