Anti-NSA spying ad enlists Hollywood — and Ted Kennedy

Olivier Knox
·Chief Washington Correspondent

Ted Kennedy, the late liberal lion of the Senate, is just one of the famous voices on a new ad meant to galvanize opposition to domestic surveillance of Americans not specifically suspected of any crimes.

“Stop Watching Us: The Video” also stars Hollywood actors such as John Cusack, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Wil Wheaton, as well as national security whistle-blowers like Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg and former NSA official Thomas Drake. (It also includes footage of former President Richard Nixon.)

The video, produced by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, comes ahead of an anti-surveillance rally on Oct. 26, the 12th anniversary of then-President George W. Bush signing the Patriot Act into law.

In a snippet from a May 29, 1974, interview, Kennedy is shown lamenting wiretapping: “This is a fearful situation, the American people ... one of the basic rights is the right to privacy.”