Americans take to streets, Internet to demand feds stop spying on citizensAmericans outraged by the federal government's spying programs took to the streets on Independence Day for "Restore the Fourth" protests in an estimated 100 American cities, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Seattle, Memphis and Miami, plus international cities such as London and Munich.
The "Restore the Fourth" national protest was named after the Fourth Amendment, which was intended to protect Americans against "unreasonable searches and seizures."
The NSA's PRISM online surveillance program was exposed by Edward Snowden only weeks ago. Americans soon learned that at least nine Internet companies reportedly submitted to government surveillance of their servers: Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Facebook, PalTalk, YouTube, Skype, AOL and Apple.
"Restore the Fourth," initially organized on Reddit, describes itself as "a non-partisan, unaffiliated group of concerned citizens who seek to strengthen the Fourth Amendment with respect to digital surveillance by the U.S. government."