A "National Day of Out(r)age Against the Telcos" was held on Wednesday, May 24th. In San Francisco, there were two protests. The first was held at noon outside of AT&T Park for street theater to point out that people won't play ball with telephone companies that do business with the NSA. There was also a rally outside of AT&T headquarters, (600 Folsom Street, between 2nd and 3rd Streets) from 4:00pm to 6:00pm. Photos The AT&T building is where the National Security Agency (NSA) set up a secret spy room to collect phone calls. Read more

On May 24th, protests will be held across the country against the telephone companies AT&T and Verizon. People are outraged by the tactics of the major telephone companies, or Telcos (AT&T, Verizon and Quest), to pass National Video Franchising legislation in Congress. The Telcos are spending one million dollars a week to buy the votes of Congresspeople for their legislation, House Bill 5252 and Senate Bill 2686 and on advertising to influence public opinion. The proposed legislation will curb local control over video franchises, negatively impact thousands of local Public, Educational and Governmental Access channels, allow red-lining in low-income and rural communities and jeopardize the openness of the internet by removing 'net neutrality' provisions designed to promote competition.

Recent news also has exposed the privacy violation of millions of telephone users-- thatAT&T and Verizon willingly handed over call records to the National Security Agency without proper legal warrants. Read more AT&T has also been in the news about its collusion with the NSA to install computers to track the internet traffic on their Worldnet backbone. Now these same corporations want even more access to homes throughout the country with their fiber networks. Protest organizers demand accountability and better protections.

Media Alliance | Access SF | Code Pink | Save Access