As we all know, or at least have heard about, the mass surveillance by the NSA going on in the United States, and possibly tracking users in other countries. The NSA operates and depends on Executive Order #12333 in the United States.
Link to petition: https://act.eff.org/action/tell-obama-stop-mass-surveillance-under-executive-order-12333 (https://act.eff.org/action/tell-obama-stop-mass-surveillance-under-executive-order-12333)
Link provided by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
The NSA relies on Executive Order 12333 to engage in mass surveillance of people around the world. But most people have never even heard of this presidential order. It’s time to respect the privacy rights of innocent people, regardless of their nationality. Tell Obama: amend Executive Order 12333 to prohibit mass surveillance.
Executive orders are legally binding orders given by the President of the United States which direct how government agencies should operate. Executive Order 12333 covers "most of what the NSA does" and is "the primary authority under which the country’s intelligence agencies conduct the majority of their operations."1 So while the U.S. Congress is considering bills to curtail mass telephone surveillance, the NSA’s primary surveillance authority will be left unchallenged.
It’s time to change that.