Stop Watching Us was a protest effort against global surveillance that culminated in rallies on October 26, 2013.

Open letter

The movement featured an open letter to the members of Congress. The letter calls upon Congress to: According to the Stop Watching Us website, over 500,000 people have signed the petition.

Public Service Announcement video

The EFF produced a 3-minute, 26-second

public service announcement A public service announcement (PSA) is a message in the public interest disseminated by the media without charge to raise public awareness and change behavior. Oftentimes these messages feature unsettling imagery, ideas or behaviors that are des ...

video (directed by Brian Knappenberger) promoting the movement. It featured a wide array of individuals: Actor John Cusack explained: "Everybody is at risk for getting caught up in the NSA dragnet – including average citizens not suspected of a crime." U.S. Representative John Conyers Jr., Professor

Lawrence Lessig Lester Lawrence "Larry" Lessig III (born June 3, 1961) is an American legal scholar and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvar ...

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, activists David Segal of Demand Progress, Cindy Cohn of the EFF, Dan Choi, actors Maggie Gyllenhaal and Wil Wheaton, TV host Phil Donahue, and whistleblowers

Daniel Ellsberg Daniel Ellsberg (April 7, 1931June 16, 2023) was an American political activist, economist, and United States military analyst. While employed by the RAND Corporation, he precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released th ...

, Jesselyn Radack, Kirk Wiebe, Mark Klein, and Thomas Drake.

October 2013 Rally

On October 26, 2013, a rally was held in Washington, DC, billed by organizers as the "largest rally yet to protest mass surveillance". A diverse coalition of over 100 advocacy groups organized the event and attracted thousands of protestors calling for an end to the mass surveillance made public by Edward Snowden. According to the Guardian, the most popular sign was printed with the words "Thank you, Edward Snowden". Jesselyn Radack read a statement from Snowden which said, in part, "This isn't about red or blue party lines, and it definitely isn't about terrorism. It's about being able to live in a free and open society ... elections are coming up, and we are watching you", adding that elected officials should be "public servants, not private investigators." The

American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is an American nonprofit civil rights organization founded in 1920. ACLU affiliates are active in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The budget of the ACLU in 2024 was $383 million. T ...

ran a column detailing its involvement and quoting a statement Snowden had provided to them in support of the event. Other speakers included former governor

Gary Johnson Gary Earl Johnson (born January 1, 1953) is an American businessman and politician who served as the 29th List of governors of New Mexico, governor of New Mexico from 1995 to 2003 as a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republica ...

and NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake. Drake addressed the crowd, saying in part, "It's time to roll back the surveillance state ... It is time for the U.S. government to stop watching us". Protestors also gathered on the day for a Stop Watching Us demonstration in

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, Germany. The date of the demonstration was 12th anniversary of the Patriot Act, which ultimately allowed for mass surveillance and bulk data collection. The "Stop Watching Us" website stated as a demand, the reform of "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 US is prohibited by law and that violations can be reviewed in adversarial proceedings before a public court." It also called for an investigation into the extent of domestic spying, and asked that officials found violating the constitution be brought to justice.

Participants

Stop Watching Us was supported by over 85 organizations, including:

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Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an American international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1990 to promote Internet civil liberties. It provides funds for legal defense in court, ...

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, Mozilla Foundation, World Wide Web Foundation, the

American Library Association The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world. History 19th century ...

Young Americans for Liberty Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) is a Libertarianism in the United States, libertarian student activism organization headquartered in Austin, Texas. Formed in 2008 in the aftermath of the Ron Paul 2008 presidential campaign, YAL establishes ch ...

, ColorOfChange.org, the

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, the Libertarian Party and the Green Party of the United States.

Related protests

Stop Watching Us followed a series of rallies for Restore the Fourth in the summer of 2013, and was followed by The Day We Fight Back, "more of a digital protest", on February 11, 2014, all of which were compared by '' Digital Trends'' to efforts in 2011 which eventually halted the Stop Online Piracy Act. On January 17, 2014, when

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

gave a speech on mass surveillance, protesters outside the Justice Department, who were described by one website as "Hundreds of Stop Watching Us activists", wore "STOP SPYING glasses" and held sign stating "Stop Spying on Us", "Big Brother In Chief" and "Obama = Tyranny.".

References

External links

* Official site: {{cite web, url=https://optin.stopwatching.us/ , title=Stop Watching Us – A Coalition Against Mass Surveillance , publisher=Stop Watching Us , url-status=usurped , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131101031439/https://optin.stopwatching.us/ , archive-date= Nov 1, 2013 2013 protests Protests in the United States Mass surveillance Protests against mass surveillance