By Cliff Montgomery – Feb. 6th, 2014
The National Security Agency’s (NSA) mass surveillance actions have horrified those who are dedicated to preserving Americans’ natural rights and attendant civil liberties. And in a few days, those people will begin fighting back.
On Feb. 11th, thousands of pro-civil-liberty groups and websites will join to declare war against the NSA’s spying activities. And this revolt may well have teeth: a number of those groups joined the Internet protest that, in 2012, killed the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act.
The protest is called “The Day We Fight Back.” Its call to action is a simple but effective one.
“If you’re in the U.S.,” declare the protest organizers in a release, “thousands of websites will host banners urging people to call/email Congress.”
“We’ll [also] ask legislators to oppose the FISA Improvements Act, support the USA Freedom Act, and enact protections for non-Americans,” add the organizers.
Those not in the U.S. “will be asked to urge appropriate targets to institute privacy protections,” stated the release.
The FISA Improvements Act is backed by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) – the protest organizers say the bill would simply make permanent existing NSA programs.
The USA Freedom Act is a bill currently in Congress which is sponsored by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI). That legislation would put limits on the federal government’s mass collection of phone meta-data, create a greater transparency for the NSA programs and ensure that a privacy advocate will oversee the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. A similar bill now in the Senate is sponsored by Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“The ultimate goal is to provide more esteem for the USA Freedom Act and other measures and to ensure that [Sen. Dianne] Feinstein’s so-called FISA Improvements Act never sees the light of day,” David Segal of the leftist group Demand Progress told National Journal magazine.
Organizers say that over 4,000 groups have agreed to participate in the Feb. 11th protest. Those entities include Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union, Mozilla, Demand Progress, the Libertarian Party, reddit, Tumblr and DailyKos.
This website, The American Spark, will be joining the protest to restore U.S. citizens’ full natural and constitutional rights.
