Websites look to ‘harness the outrage’
February 09, 2014, 06:00 am
By Julian Hattem
Thousands of websites on Tuesday will take a stand against government surveillance by plastering protests across their home pages.
Tech companies and civil liberties organizations are hoping the demonstration, called The Day We Fight Back, will replicate their success in defeating the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) in 2012.
This time activists are focusing their energy on supporting the USA Freedom Act, which would end or curtail many of the most controversial surveillance programs at the National Security Agency (NSA) and elsewhere.
“The idea is to really harness the outrage of the Internet community in speaking out in one big voice on Feb. 11,” said Rainey Reitman, the director of activism at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
The protest comes nearly a month after President Obama announced a handful of changes to the embattled spy agency’s most controversial practices. Critics said the changes weren’t nearly enough.
Read more: https://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/197859-thousands-of-sites-to-protest-nsa-spying#ixzz2spkXyhnl
