A group of civic activist organizations and Internet companies have launched online protests that aim to curtail NSA surveillance. Called “The Day We Fight Back,” the movement urges legislators to pass the USA Freedom Act and oppose the FISA Improvements Act. The former would create legal limits on NSA spying and bolster oversight of the agency; the latter would legalize the NSA’s bulk collection of phone records.
Groups involved include the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future, Free Press, BoingBoing, Reddit, Mozilla, Namecheap, and ThoughtWorks. Additionally, the companies behind the Global Government Surveillance Reform initiative including Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter and Microsoft are showing their support for The Day We Fight Back by sporting a large banner on the Reform Government Surveillance website that encourages visitors to call and email congressional representatives.
The movement asks supporters to call and email legislators in support of greater NSA oversight.
Google released its own surveillance reform post today that called for Congress to enact the USA Freedom Act, although it didn’t explicitly declare its support for today’s protest.
The anti-surveillance protest is in honor of activist and technologist Aaron Swartz, a leader of the anti-SOPA protests, who committed suicide on January 11, 2013.
Update: After publishing this story, we learned that the companies behind the Global Government Surveillance reform are supporting the Day We Fight Back. The post has been updated to reflect it.
Image courtesy of The Day We Fight Back
