Index on Censorship calls upon the US government to uphold the First Amendment. Whistleblowers such as Edward Snowden — as well as journalists reporting on the Prism scandal, who have come under fire — should be protected under the first amendment, not criminalised.

Index also condemns the alleged tapping of communications cables by the NSA and GCHQ, that would allow the mass surveillance of both meta data and content from individuals’ private communications.

Index CEO Kirsty Hughes said:

“The mass surveillance of citizens’ private communications is unacceptable – it both invades privacy and threatens freedom of expression. The US government cannot use the excuse of national security to justify either surveillance on this scale or the extradition of Snowden for revealing it.”