Mozilla, EFF and 84 more companies and organizations united against NSA espionage
A coalition of Internet companies and public organizations signed an open letter to the Obama administration calling for an audit of the powers that the American intelligence services have in terms of mass surveillance of the civilian population.
Signatories to the open letter urge Congress to create a commission like the Church Commission , formed after the Watergate scandal in the 70s to study FBI and CIA intelligence operations. Its purpose is to check whether the scouts really use only legitimate methods, do not exceed their authority, hiding crimes behind the stamp of secrecy.
Another goal of the open letter is to stimulate reforms in the field of legislative protection of the rights and freedoms of citizens, guaranteed protection of the privacy of users.
Congress is required to immediately stop the population surveillance program and provide a full public report on data collection mechanisms by the NSA and the FBI. In addition, Congress must immediately and publicly:
An open letter was signed by such well-known companies and organizations as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the Free Software Foundation (Mozilla, Reddit, 4Chan, Internet Archive, DuckDuckGo, Greenpeace and the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU). By the way, ACLU with 500 thousand registered members is considered a very authoritative organization, and its participation has already helped to implement some changes in US constitutional law.
The full text of the letter is available on the Stopwatching.us campaign website . This is a global petition that any Internet citizen can put a signature on.
“The time has come for Congress to act. We are not happy with the small amendment to the PATRIOT Act, we need a full public report on how the United States uses sophisticated spy technology to spy on its own citizens, we require accountability by officials and a complete review of the law to ensure that this does not happen again never, ” says Mark Rumold, one of the full-time lawyers at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
He is echoed by Alex Fowler, Mozilla’s director of privacy and politics: “Mozilla believes in an Internet where we don’t need to fear that every action we take is monitored, recorded and recorded by companies or governments. And we believe in a state whose actions are open, transparent and accountable.
Signatories to the open letter urge Congress to create a commission like the Church Commission , formed after the Watergate scandal in the 70s to study FBI and CIA intelligence operations. Its purpose is to check whether the scouts really use only legitimate methods, do not exceed their authority, hiding crimes behind the stamp of secrecy.
Another goal of the open letter is to stimulate reforms in the field of legislative protection of the rights and freedoms of citizens, guaranteed protection of the privacy of users.
Congress is required to immediately stop the population surveillance program and provide a full public report on data collection mechanisms by the NSA and the FBI. In addition, Congress must immediately and publicly:
- Initiate reforms in section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act and the FISA Amendments Act to make it clear and rigorously prohibit any U.S. resident from collecting data on Internet activity and telephone calls, and violations of this prohibition will be prosecuted.
- Create a special committee to investigate, report and disclose to the public the degree of espionage in the United States. The committee should make specific recommendations for legal and regulatory reform that would effectively prevent unconstitutional surveillance of citizens in the future.
- Bring to justice officials who are guilty of organizing unconstitutional surveillance of the population.
An open letter was signed by such well-known companies and organizations as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the Free Software Foundation (Mozilla, Reddit, 4Chan, Internet Archive, DuckDuckGo, Greenpeace and the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU). By the way, ACLU with 500 thousand registered members is considered a very authoritative organization, and its participation has already helped to implement some changes in US constitutional law.
The full text of the letter is available on the Stopwatching.us campaign website . This is a global petition that any Internet citizen can put a signature on.
“The time has come for Congress to act. We are not happy with the small amendment to the PATRIOT Act, we need a full public report on how the United States uses sophisticated spy technology to spy on its own citizens, we require accountability by officials and a complete review of the law to ensure that this does not happen again never, ” says Mark Rumold, one of the full-time lawyers at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
He is echoed by Alex Fowler, Mozilla’s director of privacy and politics: “Mozilla believes in an Internet where we don’t need to fear that every action we take is monitored, recorded and recorded by companies or governments. And we believe in a state whose actions are open, transparent and accountable.
Full list of companies and organizations that have signed an open letter
Access
Advocacy for Principled Action in Government
American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression
American Civil Liberties Union
American Civil Liberties Union of California
American Library Association
Amicus
Association of Research Libraries
Bill of Rights Defense Committee
BoingBoing
Breadpig
Calyx Institute
Canvas
Center for Democracy and Technology
Center for Digital Democracy
Center for Financial Privacy and Human Rights
Center for Media and Democracy
Center for Media Justice
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Consumer Action
Consumer Watchdog
CorpWatch
CREDO Mobile
Cyber Privacy Project
Daily Kos
Defending Dissent Foundation
Demand Progress
Detroit Digital Justice Coalition
Digital Fourth
Downsize DC
DuckDuckGo
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Entertainment Consumers Association
Fight for the Future
Floor64
Foundation for Innovation and Internet Freedom
4Chan
Free Press
Free Software Foundation
Freedom of the Press Foundation
FreedomWorks
Friends of Privacy USA
Get FISA Right
Government Accountability Project
Greenpeace USA
Institute of Popular Education of Southern California (IDEPSCA)
Internet Archive
isen.com, LLC
Knowledge Ecology International (KEI)
Law Life Culture
Liberty Coalition
May First / People Link
Media Alliance
Media Mobilizing Project, Philadelphia
Mozilla
Namecheap
National Coalition Against Censorship
New Sanctuary Coalition of NYC
Open Technology Institute
OpenMedia.org
Participatory Politics Foundation
Patient Privacy Rights
People for the American Way
Personal Democracy Media
PolitiHacks
Privacy and Access Council of Canada
Public Interest Advocacy Center (Ottawa, Canada)
Public Knowledge
Privacy Activism
Privacy Camp
Privacy Rights Clearinghouse
Privacy Times
Reddit
Represent.us
Rights Working Group
Rocky Mountain Civil Liberties Association
RootsAction.org
Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic
Sunlight Foundation
Taxpayers Protection Alliance
TechFreedom
The AIDS Policy Project, Philadelphia
TURN-The Utility Reform Network
Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center
William C. Velasquez Institute (WCVI)
World Wide Web Foundation
Advocacy for Principled Action in Government
American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression
American Civil Liberties Union
American Civil Liberties Union of California
American Library Association
Amicus
Association of Research Libraries
Bill of Rights Defense Committee
BoingBoing
Breadpig
Calyx Institute
Canvas
Center for Democracy and Technology
Center for Digital Democracy
Center for Financial Privacy and Human Rights
Center for Media and Democracy
Center for Media Justice
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Consumer Action
Consumer Watchdog
CorpWatch
CREDO Mobile
Cyber Privacy Project
Daily Kos
Defending Dissent Foundation
Demand Progress
Detroit Digital Justice Coalition
Digital Fourth
Downsize DC
DuckDuckGo
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Entertainment Consumers Association
Fight for the Future
Floor64
Foundation for Innovation and Internet Freedom
4Chan
Free Press
Free Software Foundation
Freedom of the Press Foundation
FreedomWorks
Friends of Privacy USA
Get FISA Right
Government Accountability Project
Greenpeace USA
Institute of Popular Education of Southern California (IDEPSCA)
Internet Archive
isen.com, LLC
Knowledge Ecology International (KEI)
Law Life Culture
Liberty Coalition
May First / People Link
Media Alliance
Media Mobilizing Project, Philadelphia
Mozilla
Namecheap
National Coalition Against Censorship
New Sanctuary Coalition of NYC
Open Technology Institute
OpenMedia.org
Participatory Politics Foundation
Patient Privacy Rights
People for the American Way
Personal Democracy Media
PolitiHacks
Privacy and Access Council of Canada
Public Interest Advocacy Center (Ottawa, Canada)
Public Knowledge
Privacy Activism
Privacy Camp
Privacy Rights Clearinghouse
Privacy Times
Represent.us
Rights Working Group
Rocky Mountain Civil Liberties Association
RootsAction.org
Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic
Sunlight Foundation
Taxpayers Protection Alliance
TechFreedom
The AIDS Policy Project, Philadelphia
TURN-The Utility Reform Network
Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center
William C. Velasquez Institute (WCVI)
World Wide Web Foundation