In a rare case of bipartisan unity, hundreds of organizations, companies, business leaders and celebrities from both sides of the aisle will gather in the nation’s capital on Saturday to protest the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance of American citizens.
The rally is being sponsored by the organization StopWatching.us, which bills itself as a coalition of more than 100 public advocacy organizations and companies working together to put an end to the NSA’s warrantless surveillance program. StopWatching.us chose October 26 to hold the rally, as that is the 12th anniversary of the signing of the USA PATRIOT Act, the law that gave the NSA the ability to conduct the searches.
Among the organizations participating are the conservative Freedomworks and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, as well as the liberal American Civil Liberties Union and Demand Progress. Former Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald – who originally broke the story – and actors John Cusack and Mark Ruffalo will also be taking part in Saturday’s rally.
Other organizations participating in the rally include (a full list can be found here):
- Generation Justice
- Generation Opportunity
- Greenpeace USA
- MoveOn.org
- Mozilla
- Occupy Wall Street NYC
- R Street Institute
- Restore the Fourth
- Whistleblower Defense League
- Young Americans for Liberty
During the rally, StopWatching.us will hand over the more than 571,000 petitions signed by ordinary Americans as of press time to Congress “to remind them that they work for us.”
“We won’t tolerate mass surveillance any longer,” the website says.
Watch a video about the rally below.
