| Dear Katy, Speaker Pelosi's House of Representatives just quietly extended the government's legal power to surveil our phone calls.1 Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows the government to collect a massive amount of our personal information without a warrant, was set to expire on December 15. But House Democrats recently joined with Republicans in the House and Senate to quietly approve a stop-gap budget bill that included an extension of Section 215 until March 15, 2020. We cannot let this stand. Section 215 gives the NSA legal ability to listen to our phone calls. It lets the government keep records of who we are talking to and what we are talking about. No Democrat should have allowed this extension to pass without a meaningful public debate. Speak out now to show Democrats that we are watching and demand that they allow Section 215 to expire in March. Tell Democrats in Congress: Make a wrong decision right. Sunset Section 215 in March 2020. Click here to sign the petition. Congress passed the wildly invasive Patriot Act during the anti-Muslim hysteria that followed 9/11. It undermines our civil liberties and targets communities of color and immigrants, but has never been proven effective in preventing terrorist attacks. All it has ever done is sanction state-sponsored criminalization of -- and violence against -- Muslims and open the floodgates for the government to collect millions of Americans' phone data in bulk without us knowing.2 Under Trump's National Security Agency, extending surveillance powers under Section 215 is even more dangerous. Through anti-Muslim draconian border policies such as the Muslim ban, the Trump administration is already over-policing and attacking the rights of our Muslim neighbors, friends and family members. We must do everything we can to protect them. That includes holding Democrats' feet to the fire when they supercharge Trump's surveillance state. Add your name now to make clear to every Democrat in Congress that we expect them to fight tooth and nail to safeguard our democracy from authoritarians like Trump, not help him attack our civil liberties and spy on our communities. Tell Democrat lawmakers: Sunset Section 215 in March 2020. Click the link below to sign the petition: https://act.credoaction.com/sign/repeal-section-215?t=9&akid=35253%2E12967895%2EY7iAdG Thanks for fighting back, Jelani Drew, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets Add your name: References: - Zack Whittaker, "Congress extends NSA calls records collection powers to March," Tech Crunch, Nov. 21, 2019.
- Rainey Reitman, "3 Years Later, the Snowden Leaks Have Changed How the World Sees NSA Surveillance," Electric Frontier Foundation, June 5, 2016.
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