Call to Action: Join the Fight Against Cyber Spying Proposals in the Senate

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Rainey Reitman
EFF

EFF and an array of civil liberties organizations are engaged in a pitched battle against the privacy-invasive legislation Congress is pushing under the guise of promoting “cyber security.”

Everyone agrees that network security is important, but a thinly disguised mass surveillance bill won’t help address the needs of our country in defending our networks.

Even when faced with wide-ranging opposition from security experts and the Obama Administration, the House of Representatives managed to ram through CISPA, a bill widely decried as empowering the military to collect the Internet records of Americans’ everyday Internet use. Now the fight is moving to the Senate, and the word from DC is that a vote on cybersecurity measures could happen in early June.

That gives us little time to waste in fighting this legislation. We need the Internet community to rise up and fight for online freedoms in the cybersecurity debates. Here’s how you can help:

1. Send an email to Congress. Our online form makes this a quick process – just fill in your info, customize the message, and hit send.
2. Tweet at your Senator. We need to use every avenue possible to show opposition to efforts to undermine our civil liberties by claiming security.  Use our Senatorial Twitter Handle Detection Tool to tweet at your Senator. 
3. Request a meeting with your Senator to discuss the cyber security legislation. Our friends at Fight for the Future have created an easy online tool for requesting a meeting with Senators. Report back and let us know if you are able to get the meeting scheduled – or if Senators are resisting the meetings – by email [email protected].
4. Call your Senator.  We’ll give you a simple script to help you along.

Are you a civil liberties-defending superstar? Not everyone will have the time and inclination to take all 4 of these steps, but if you’re one of the dedicated freedom fighters who has done all of these things then please let us know by sending an email with your Twitter handle to [email protected] with “Digital rights FTW” in the subject line.  With your permission, we’ll publicly recognize you.

Thanks for helping us defend liberty in the digital world.