President Obama must immediately dismantle the surveillance state.

Petition to President Obama:

“Dismantle the surveillance state. Disclose all mass surveillance programs, delete the data stored on Americans and demolish the physical infrastructure needed to collect this data.”

Add your name:

The federal government currently has more power than ever before to monitor Americans by collecting our emails, text messages, phone records, chats, locations, purchases and other private information in bulk.

CREDO has fought the expansion of the surveillance state under Presidents Bush and Obama because we believe that mass warrantless spying on Americans is an ineffective violation of civil liberties, regardless of who is in power. Letting a fascist like Donald Trump seize control of the surveillance state could have even more dangerous and profound consequences for Americans.

Pres. Obama expanded the surveillance state during his presidency, and it is now his responsibility to take all steps in his power to dismantle it before Trump takes office.¹

Tell President Obama: Immediately dismantle the surveillance state. Click here to sign the petition.

From spying on activists² to prosecuting whistleblowers, the surveillance state has repeatedly been abused under President Obama. But, we have every reason to believe these abuses will get much worse if a vindictive bully like Trump takes control of the secretive, unaccountable spying apparatus.

Throughout his campaign, Trump called for expanding the already bloated surveillance state. And, Trump has made how he intends to abuse expanded surveillance powers perfectly clear: Spying on mosques, targeting immigrants and other vulnerable communities and suppressing journalism and activism.^{3, 4}

Trump has also shown his hand through nominations. His pick for CIA Director, tea party Rep. Mike Pompeo from Kansas, is a leading supporter of expanding domestic spying programs. Pompeo introduced Orwellian legislation last year called the Liberty Through Strength Act, which would give the National Security Agency more access to business records and the FBI more access to communications data. Pompeo wants the NSA to restart its bulk collection of metadata and combine those records with financial and “lifestyle” data in a massive, searchable database.⁵ Chillingly, he’s also referred to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden as a traitor who he believes should receive the death penalty.⁶

It’s clear that Trump intends to use the surveillance state to spy on hundreds of millions of Americans, target vulnerable communities and suppress journalism and political dissent. President Obama has a grave responsibility to do everything in his power before leaving office to hamper Trump’s ability to abuse the spying apparatus by disclosing all mass surveillance programs, deleting data currently stored on Americans and physically destroying the infrastructure needed to collect additional data.

If Trump wants to wage an assault on our civil liberties, President Obama should make him build the capacity to do so from scratch.

Tell President Obama: Immediately dismantle the surveillance state. Click here to sign the petition.

Thanks for everything you do.

Josh Nelson, Deputy Political Director

CREDO Action from Working Assets

Add your name:

References: