Stop Watching Us: Mehr als 120.000 Mitzeichner gegen Daten-Spionage in 3 Tagen

Es ist Tag drei der von Mozilla STiftung und der EFF initiierten Aktion gegen die Datenspionage der NSA in den USA. In einem offenen Brief wird gefordert, dass alle druchgeführten Spionage-Methoden und deren Ausmaß offen dargelegt werden. Bis zum jetzigen Zeitpunkt gibt es bereits 121.000 Mitzeichner. Die Zahl dürfte rasant steigen, da auch bekannte Internetgrößen wie Reddit und AdBlock Plus sich mittlerweile angeschlossen haben.

Gefordert wird eine Einstellung der Daten-Sammelei und eine Offenlegung aller Programme, die Daten sammeln. Diese verstoße nämlich massiv gegen die Grundrechte. Der gesamte Brief im Wortlaut:

[werbung]

Dear Members of Congress,

We write to express our concern about recent reports published in the Guardian and the Washington Post, and acknowledged by the Obama Administration, which reveal secret spying by the National Security Agency (NSA) on phone records and Internet activity of people in the United States.

The Washington Post and the Guardian recently published reports based on information provided by an intelligence contractor showing how the NSA and the FBI are gaining broad access to data collected by nine of the leading U.S. Internet companies and sharing this information with foreign governments. As reported, the U.S. government is extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time. As a result, the contents of communications of people both abroad and in the U.S. can be swept in without any suspicion of crime or association with a terrorist organization.

Leaked reports also published by the Guardian and confirmed by the Administration reveal that the NSA is also abusing a controversial section of the PATRIOT Act to collect the call records of millions of Verizon customers. The data collected by the NSA includes every call made, the time of the call, the duration of the call, and other „identifying information“ for millions of Verizon customers, including entirely domestic calls, regardless of whether those customers have ever been suspected of a crime. The Wall Street Journal has reported that other major carriers, including AT&T and Sprint, are subject to similar secret orders.

This type of blanket data collection by the government strikes at bedrock American values of freedom and privacy. This dragnet surveillance violates the First and Fourth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, which protect citizens‘ right to speak and associate anonymously, guard against unreasonable searches and seizures, and protect their right to privacy.

We are calling on Congress to take immediate action to halt this surveillance and provide a full public accounting of the NSA’s and the FBI’s data collection programs. We call on Congress to immediately and publicly:

1. Enact reform this Congress to 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 U.S. is prohibited by law and that violations can be reviewed in adversarial proceedings before a public court;

2. Create a special committee to investigate, report, and reveal to the public the extent of this domestic spying. This committee should create specific recommendations for legal and regulatory reform to end unconstitutional surveillance;

3. Hold accountable those public officials who are found to be responsible for this unconstitutional surveillance.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Mitzeichnen kann man den Brief auf stopwatching.us. Es wird sicher noch sehr spannend zu sehen sein, wie weitreichend dieser riesige Daten-Skandal letztendlich sein wird und vor allem, wie sich Politiker in diesem Zusammenhang verhalten werden.