J M Wetherington Sr

Today has been set aside on the Internet as the day for websites, blogs, podcasts and others across the web in America and around the world to let it be known that we are against the mass surveillance practiced by the NSA, in particular, and the intelligence agencies of other nations. Peaceful protests are also planned in the streets of cities around the globe like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Copenhagen, Stockholm and others.

If you go to The Day We Fight Back website, you can see how many organizations have joined hands in this effort. The usual groups against privacy infringement such as EFF and ACLU are joined by Mozilla, Reddit, BoingBoing, Greenpeace and many others, along with (as of this writing) 5,923 websites which have added the banner you see at the bottom of this page, urging U.S. citizens to contact their elected officials and world citizens will be asked to contact the appropriate officials in their area of residence to urge privacy protection.

I am a patriotic American citizen who believes in a strong America, but not at the cost of our ethical integrity. To me, the NSA practice of “Hoovering” every American’s phone calls, emails, website visits, chat room messages, video calls and text messages is analogous to the police department deciding that, in order to prevent future crimes, they will sneak into their citizenry’s homes, inventory all of their possessions, catalog all their bank accounts, record all their home alarm system passcodes and note all occupants of the home and their family and friends. Then they will hold that information and cross check it with all the other homes they have sneaked into and surreptitiously watch all those homes, adding other homes to the connection as more information becomes available.

If you too believe that the mass surveillance of your fellow citizens is wrong, I hope you’ll use the banner at the bottom of this page to contact your appropriate elected official and let them know you do not support the questionable and unlawful actions of the NSA or whatever intelligence agency is applicable to your home country.