NDAA Trends On Twitter During The Debate

NDAA Trends On Twitter During The Debate
US President Barack Obama greets Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney as the two contenders arrive on stage for the third and final presidential debate October 22, 2012 at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida. AFP PHOTO/Mandel NGAN (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)
US President Barack Obama greets Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney as the two contenders arrive on stage for the third and final presidential debate October 22, 2012 at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida. AFP PHOTO/Mandel NGAN (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

Among the many topics not discussed in Monday night's debate was the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, a law signed by President Barack Obama that strengthens the government's power to detain U.S. citizens indefinitely without charge. Many activists see the NDAA as a devastating assault on civil liberties, but the debate moderator, Bob Schieffer, chose not to ask about it, and neither of the candidates brought it up on his own.

One place where it did receive a lot of mentions was on Twitter.

Stopndaa.org, a website paid for by the activist groups Revolution Truth and Demand Progress, had posted a rallying call to anti-NDAA protestors, exhorting them to get #stopndaa trending on Twitter during the debate.

It seems to have worked. Within a half hour after the debate began, the slogan was trending and, according to a hashtag analytics site referenced by Salon.com, the tweets hit 31,600 per hour.

An online post credited to the protest group Anonymous and the website Suicide Girls also joined in the call for "tweet jacking."

"The last of the Presidential Debates is upon us," read the post. "Those of us who are awake to the human rights travesty known as the NDAA and are concerned for our civil liberties have been ignored completely."

Before You Go

Interview A Member Of The Taliban

7 Ways To Get Yourself Indefinitely Detained

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot