The Guardian reports that on Saturday thousands of protesters marched in Washington to demand the NSA stop their programs of mass surveillance. The protesters came from all sides of the political spectrum and a wide variety of civil groups. Speakers at the rally included former NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake and a former governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson. Full coverage of the rally is available here.
Edward Snowden released a statement in support of the Rally Against Mass Surveillance:
In the last four months, we’ve learned a lot about our government.
We’ve learned that the U.S. intelligence community secretly built a system of pervasive surveillance. Today, no telephone in America makes a call without leaving a record with the NSA. Today, no internet transaction enters or leaves America without passing through the NSA’s hands. Our representatives in Congress tell us this is not surveillance. They’re wrong.
Now it’s time for the government to learn from us. On Saturday, the ACLU, EFF, and the rest of the StopWatching.Us coalition are going to D.C. Join us in sending the message: Stop Watching Us.
