The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), the latest attempt by the US legislative branch to hinder online freedom, just received a significant blow from concerned citizens. On the official White House petition site, an anti-CISPA petition has reached 100,000 signatures. That’s not just a big number — it’s the minimum requirement for a mandatory response from the White House.

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) were successfully halted last year after near-universal outcry from internet citizens and internet giants like Wikipedia and Google. Now, CISPA is seeing similar backlash. While CISPA isn’t focused on piracy like SOPA and PIPA, it still provides the US government the ability to legally spy on its citizens’ internet traffic with little-to-no roadblocks.

Last year, the White House made it clear that CISPA would be vetoed if it was voted into law, and it eventually died on the vine. Now that the act has been reintroduced by Michigan’s Mike Rogers in the House of Representatives, it’s important that the Obama administration come out against it as vigorously as it did last go around. This petition response gives the president a perfect platform to threaten a veto once more.

Earlier this week, 34 internet rights organizations sent a letter to congress balking at this reintroduction of CISPA. Unsurprisingly, among the 34 were Mozilla, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the American Civil Liberties Union. Despite early support last time around from companies like Microsoft and Facebook, CISPA wasn’t able to make it all the way. With these considerable objections, hopefully CISPA will die and stay dead this time. It isn’t a done deal, though. Politicians, and the lobbyists they work with, have their minds set on controlling every aspect of the internet. It’s going to take a lot more than a petition to keep their hands off of internet freedom.

If you’re worried about CISPA, your best bet is to contact your elected officials to tell them you’re not having any part of this. While actual constituents won’t have the same pull with congress as certain lobbyists, letting them know their jobs are on the line will have some weight behind it. Fighting off privacy invasion and internet-breaking regulation is a constant battle, and online petitions can only do so much. Letter-writing and phone calls will do much more for the cause of keeping the internet away from politicians.

Now read: Internet freedom is on the decline, but we’re fighting back

[Image credit: Mark Skrobola & Joe Lustri]