On April 29, we officially launched studentsagainstsurveillance.com, hosting our own NYU letter protesting academic surveillance. Soon after, we started encouraging other students to write letters on behalf of other universities. We're in talks with several institutions nationwide on this count, but tonight, as we wait for more progress, I was incredibly proud to be able to send this e-mail to the original signatories of the NYU letter:

Hi there -- 

Recently, you signed a petition protesting mass surveillance in an academic setting. You thought universities should be strongholds of open communication, where the free flow of information is encouraged.

Today, we're very proud to be able to say that NYU president John Sexton agrees with us. We've just added a statement from him to studentsagainstsurveillance.com/nyu. The statement, provided to us by Marc Wais (Vice President for Global Student Affairs), affirms his commitment to open dialogue:

"Increasingly, our great universities are modern sanctuaries, the sacred spaces sustaining and enhancing scholarship, creativity and learning [...] What makes these sanctuaries special is the core commitment to free, unbridled and ideologically unconstrained discourse in which claims of knowledge are examined, confirmed, deepened or replaced. . In this regard, I emphasize the importance of acting aggressively and with every means at our disposal to secure and protect every element essential to the general enterprise of free inquiry, the centrality of standards and the reciprocal commitments attendant to citizenship within the sanctuary." 

We're working with students from other universities to draft their own letters of protest, and we could use your help. If you know a student at another university who'd be interested in writing a letter of protest, put them in touch with us -- we can host their letter on studentsagainstsurveillance.com and get the conversation started on their campus. Together, we can put pressure on the U.S. government to bring the NSA back within the bounds of the constitution. 

Best --

Tommy, Hannah, and Luc.