“We just think that what’s happening here is so outrageous, progressives can’t afford to stand on the sidelines,” PCCC’s Zaid Jilani said. “We have to stand up for accountable, transparent government that respects your rights.” …

“We thought there would be interest from our members in this issue, but we were definitely taken aback by the response,” he said. “There have been concerns before about Obama’s record on civil liberties and the security state, but people are genuinely shocked by the extent of this.” …

“If you go back and look at candidate Obama’s statements about whistleblowers and civil liberties, breaches of freedom and privacy under the past administration, you’d have a hard time saying Candidate Obama would agree with President Obama on this,” Jilani said. “Within six hours of the whistleblower being outed, they were already talking about a criminal probe. They weren’t talking about any internal investigation of the NSA’s conduct or abuses of the Patriot Act.”