14 DAY TRIAL // This past weekend, people took to the streets, demanding their right to privacy. The Stop Watching Us rally gathered thousands of people who wanted to make sure politicians heard what they had to say, as they asked for their Fourth Amendment to be restored by shutting down NSA surveillance.
The rally took place in Washington, but also in other areas, on October 26, the day the Patriot Act was signed 12 years ago. The act’s Section 215 is the one that helped the NSA make its own rules about who it could spy on and how it could do it.
The campaign puts together some 100 public advocacy groups, as well as well-known figures such as Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, Daniel Ellsberg, whistleblower of the Pentagon papers, Glenn Greenwald and Edward Snowden, himself.
Protesters took to the streets and demanded that an investigative committee be created to report the extent of domestic spying and enact regulatory reform.
As they moved through the city, they held banners thanking Edward Snowden for exposing what he thought wasn’t morally right and asking the US to stop spying. Others, stressed perhaps the most important issue in this entire scandal – “Wanting privacy doesn’t mean you have something to hide.”
In front of the US Capitol, several large boxes with a large note on them were placed, indicating the petition to stop surveillance has reached 575,000 signatures, which is a huge number for an effort spanning over several months. Over the weekend, however, the number has reached 584,619, indicating more people were pushed into action following the rally.
And while the United States is rallying against the NSA, the rest of the world is also taking action against mass surveillance, 21 countries, including Germany, France and Brazil have united their powers to create a UN resolution that puts a stop to such practices as the ones the NSA is engaging on.