Policy

Anti-Surveillance Activists Actually Would Like To Be Watched at Rally Saturday

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Under the banner "Stop Watching Us," citizens protesting the National Security Agency's humongous, intrusive surveillance infrastructure will be taking to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., where they will all likely be secretly photographed and identified with facial recognition software. Just kidding. The NSA already knows who they are.

Anyway, CNet has an interview has an interview with Rainey Reitman, activism director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation about the development of the rally:

Question: What is Stop Watching Us?

Reitman: Stop Watching Us is a coalition that came together right after the Snowden leaks began appearing earlier this summer. It's a coalition of more than 100 different organizations and companies from across the political spectrum, it's got everyone from EFF and ACLU to Reddit and Freedom Works.

Can you tell me a bit about the Stop Watching Us protest planned for this weekend?

Reitman: On Saturday, we are going to be gathering at noon at Columbus Circle and will march to the Capitol Reflecting Pool. It's going to be a historic protest against NSA mass surveillance. We are going to have speakers like Bruce Schneier and Representative Amash and Thomas Drake, as well as musicians like the indie-pop group Yacht. We are going to be delivering 570,000 petitions from people demanding an end to mass suspicion-less surveillance by the NSA.

Read the whole interview here. Reason TV will be in attendance at the rally on Saturday, so if you can't make it out (or if you're just afraid of who might be watching), we've got you covered.

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