While companies like Google and Facebook are denying sending the National Security Agency (NSA) information about its users, Mozilla is leading the charge against NSA surveillance with its Stop Watching Us petition. In less than 48 hours, the petition has been signed by over 100,000 people (113,452 at the time of this writing). Stop Watching Us will send each petitioner’s Representatives and Senator(s) an email, demanding to know the full extent of information gathered by the NSA PRISM program.
For those who don’t know, PRISM is a program run by the NSA, created to access data from the world’s major internet companies like Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, Apple, Microsoft, and Skype. This access allows the NSA to snoop on calls, chats, emails, and various online activity. Documents were leaked by Edward Snowden, a former technical contractor for the CIA.
The leaks have sparked a national debate about whether or not the NSA should be allowed to continue snooping to protect the American people from terrorist attacks.
Mozilla hopes that the Stop Watching Us petition will pressure Congressmen and Congresswomen to reveal the “full extent of the NSA’s spying programs.” The company is promoting the petition by showing it their search engine results.
Over 80 civil liberties groups have backed the Stop Watching Us petition, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, FreedomWorks, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The ACLU has gone as far as filing suit against the NSA for constitutional infringement.
[Source: The Next Web | EFF]
