Biggest privacy rally to be held in US

The biggest rally against the US National Security Agency’s spying activities is to be held in Washington, D.C., on Saturday.

Thousands of protesters are to gather in front of Union State at 11:30 a.m. by the Christopher Columbus Memorial Fountain in Columbus Circle, the organizers of the event said.

A coalition of over 100 public advocacy organizations, known as Stop Watching Us, is organizing the rally and a number of whistleblowers, activists, and researchers are to give speeches at the historical event.

The demonstrators will also hand over a half-million petitions to US Congress expressing their opposition to the NSA’s mass surveillance.

Since early June, documents disclosed by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden have blown the lid on a number of US spying programs including one for collecting Americans’ phone records and another, codenamed PRISM, for tracking the use of US-based Internet servers by all people around the world.

Other leaked documents have also shown that US spy agencies even conducted cyber-attacks and hacked into the computer systems of other countries’ diplomatic missions.

Germany, France, Mexico and several other countries have expressed concerns about US spying activities.

Germany and Brazil are working now on a UN General Assembly resolution on privacy. German and Brazilian diplomats have met with diplomats from other European and Latin American countries to discuss a draft resolution.

A diplomat involved in the talks said that the resolution will not mention the United States but would call for extending the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to Internet activities.

ISH/ISH