6,000 sites protest against US spying

Over 6,000 websites and leading technology firms staged an online protest on Tuesday dubbed “The Day We Fight Back” against mass surveillance by the US government.

Prominent websites, including Yahoo-owned Tumblr, Reddit, DuckDuckGo and Imgur are among the major sites to join the protest previously announced against spying operations conducted by the National Security Agency.
As part of their protest, the websites posted banners on their pages, urging people to contact members of US Congress and ask them to limit or reduce online surveillance by government agencies.
They also called on the public to sign a petition demanding that any NSA intrusion be legal and proportional to potential threats. The websites also demanded oversight of the intelligence services.
Senior executives from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, AOL, LinkedIn and Twitter published a joint statement and sent a letter to President Barack Obama and members of Congress.
“Together we will push back against powers that seek to observe, collect, and analyze our every digital action. Together, we will make it clear that such behavior is not compatible with democratic governance. Together, if we persist, we will win this fight,” said the statement.
“Reports about government surveillance have shown there is a real need for greater disclosure and new limits on how governments collect information,” said Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg in a statement on the Reform Government Surveillance website. “The US government should take this opportunity to lead this reform effort.”
The petition had over 87,300 signatures and more than 19,000 emails had been sent to members of Congress shortly after the protest was staged.
Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor, exposed the agency’s surveillance programs. He is staying in Russia on temporary asylum and is wanted in the United States for espionage charges.
The disclosures sparked global outrage and even some of Washington’s closest allies have denounced the spying programs.