The nerve of these people

Urgent action needed: Congress is trying to bring back CISPA … again.

Dear Fight for the Future member,

Over the weekend a detailed report in the Washington Post caught the U.S. government in more lies about the scope of its dragnet surveillance programs. The Post showed that the NSA intercepted communications from ordinary people 9 times more often than from “targets” suspected of any wrongdoing.

People are outraged. And we should be. Any politician that plans to keep their job should be doing everything they can to put an end to these illegal and unethical surveillance practices.

Infuriatingly, *today* the Senate Intelligence Committee is rushing to advance “CISA,” a bill that would give the NSA more access to our data than ever before, and give companies like Facebook and Google legal immunity for violating our privacy.

Your signature is needed to stop CISA, the new CISPA. Will you click here to take action right now? Every second counts, the markup is this afternoon.

Does “CISA” sound kind of familiar? That’s because it’s another zombified version of CISPA, a bill that Internet users have beaten back twice before.

It’s despicable that the Senate Intelligence Committee, who are supposed to oversee the government’s spying programs and protect our rights, is choosing this moment to resurrect CISPA, and sneaking it through in a closed door markup.

Thanks to the huge rise in privacy activism and reporting over the past year, it should be easier than ever to defeat legislation like this. But we have to remain vigilant. Congress is trying to do this quietly; we can’t let them. Take action right now.

-Evan at Fight for the Future

1) Barton Gellman, Julie Tate, and Ashkan Soltani. The Washington Post. In NSA-intercepted data those not targeted far outnumber the foreigners who are. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-nsa-intercepted-data-those-not-targeted-far-outnumber-the-foreigners-who-are/2014/07/05/8139adf8-045a-11e4-8572-4b1b969b6322_story.html?tid=pm_pop

2) Senate Select Comittee on Intelligence schedule: http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings.cfm?hearingId=0cb5dc5497c5ffb2985cb30c479a2d30

3) Office of Senator Dianne Feinsten. CISA bill text: http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/files/serve/?File_id=08de1c1b-446b-478c-84a8-0c3f35963216