To: President Donald Trump
President Obama: Come Clean About Domestic Spying
President Obama, instruct the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies to disclose all mass surveillance programs. Any terrorists already assume they are being monitored — the American people have a right to know if and when we are.
Why is this important?
We’re learning more and more about National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance of a massive percentage of domestic phone and Internet communications involving ordinary Americans.
National security has not suffered one bit — because any terrorists already assume that everything they do is being monitored — but these revelations have initiated a vital discussion over Americans’ legitimate concerns about their privacy.
All major phone companies turn over vast quantities of data for government surveillance. The U.S. Postal Service photographs the exterior of every piece of mail it handles. The NSA can touch 75% of all Internet traffic in the country.
What else is the government tracking indiscriminately: credit card transactions, medical records, who flosses and who doesn’t?
There is no conceivable danger to national security in revealing how much our own government is spying on us. But we are in grave peril if we don’t know the true extent to which our constitutional rights to privacy, freedom of speech and freedom of association are subject to the prying eyes of Big Brother.