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.
Selected
Signatories:
- 18MillionRising
- 350.org
- Access
- American Civil Liberties Union
- American Library Association
- Americans for Job Security
- Applied Research Center
- Association for Progressive Communications
- Association of Alternative Newsmedia
- Association of Research Libraries
- Big Bad Lab
- Bill of Rights Defense Committee
- Blog Action Day
- Bradley Manning Support Network
- Calyx Institute
- Campaign for Liberty
- Center for Democracy and Technology
- Center for Media Justice
- Centro de Cultura Luiz Freire
- ColorOfChange.org
- Competitive Enterprise Institute
- Consumer Watchdog
- Courage to Resist
- CREDO Action
- Daily Kos
- Defending Dissent
- Demand Progress
- Detroit Digital Justice Coalition
- Digital Fourth
- Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Electronic Frontiers Australia
- EngageMedia
- Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA)
- Fight for the Future
- Foundation for Innovation and Internet Freedom
- Free Press
- Free Software Foundation
- Freedom of the Press Foundation
- Freedom Works
- Gandi.net
- Generation Justice
- GNOME
- Green Party of Rhode Island
- Green Party of the United States
- Greenpeace USA
- Guardian Project
- HackThisSite.org
- Icelandic Modern Media Initiative
- 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 Literacy Project
- Media Mobilizing Project
- MoveOn.org
- Mozilla
- National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
- National Coalition Against Censorship
- National Security Counselors
- OccupyWallSt.org
- Occupy Wall Street NYC
- Open Internet Tools Project
- Open Technology Institute at New America Foundation
- OpenMedia.org
- 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
- Reel Grrls
- RestoreTheFourth
- 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
- Upwell
- Urbana Champaign Independent Media Center
- Women in Media & News
- World Wide Web Foundation
- Worldwide Movement for Human Rights
- YourAnonNews