A broad coalition of well-known organisations staged an online protest against government surveillance of Internet users on 11 February, in memory of activist Aaron Swartz.
Reddit, the Electronic Freedom Foundation, Free Press, Mozilla and several other organisations called for pressure to be put on law makers to help end the NSA’s aggressive information collection activities.
Free Press’ Josh Levy said in a statement that mass movements of this type are critical to checking the surveillance programmes.
“Since the first revelations last summer, hundreds of thousands of Internet users have come together online and offline to protest the NSA’s unconstitutional surveillance programs,” he said. “These programs attack our basic rights to connect and communicate in private, and strike at the foundations of democracy itself.”
The announcement was made just ahead of the first anniversary of Swartz’ suicide on 11 January 2013. He was under indictment for allegedly downloading a large number of academic journal articles illicitly.
Swartz was the co-founder of the activist group Demand Progress along with David Segal.
“If Aaron were alive he’d be on the front lines, fighting back against these practices that undermine our ability to engage with each other as genuinely free human beings,” Segal said.
IDG News Service
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