As we have learned from recent media disclosures, under the
Patriot Act, the government has been secretly tracking the calls of customers
of major telecommunications companies for years. And under the unconstitutional
FISA Amendments Act, the NSA obtains the contents of online communications from
many of the Internet companies we have come to rely on for our basic,
day-to-day interactions, like Google and Facebook. The government can access
much of this incredibly sensitive data about people – including the contents of
Americans’ communications with people overseas – whom it does not suspect of
any wrongdoing, and without any meaningful judicial oversight. As an advocate
for the constitutional right to privacy from government intrusion, this is
cause for major concern.
The more we learn about these programs, the more it
becomes clear that the surveillance state is upon us. But we have the power to
stop it. Congress must rein in government spying by fixing the Patriot Act and
FISA and providing a full public accounting of the NSA’s data collection
program.
In the wake of the recent revelations about the NSA's
unprecedented mass surveillance of phone calls, the ACLU filed a lawsuit
charging that the program violates Americans' constitutional rights of free
speech, association, and privacy. Learn more about the ACLU’s effort to
stop the NSA.
