Can Oliver Stone (?!) Convince Americans to Protest Against the NSA?
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit San Francisco-based organization that works to “defend your rights in the digital world,” has released “Stop Watching Us: The Video” on YouTube as part of its effort to promote its Stop Watching Us effort. In addition to organizing a petition (“We demand the U.S. Congress reveal the full extent of the NSA’s spying programs”) that has garnered more than half a million signatures to date, Stop Watching Us will stage “A Rally Against Mass Surveillance” in Washington, D.C,. this Saturday.
There are some heavy-hitters involved in Stop Watching Us — including Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web; Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian; and Daniel “Pentagon Papers” Ellsberg; as well as several former National Security Agency employees-turned-whistleblowers who predate Edward Snowden — but for some reason Stop Watching Us decided to celebrify this video by mixing in some famous talking heads.
So brace yourself for stern soundbites from Phil Donahue, Maggie Gyllenhaal, John Cusack, Wil Wheaton and, perhaps most weirdly and inappropriately, professional conspiracy theorist and history-fictionalizer Oliver Stone.
