BERLIN
Organizers of the "Freedom Not Fear" event pegged the turnout in Berlin's Alexanderplatz at 20,000 throughout Saturday's protest, during which speakers denounced the U.S. National Security Agency and Britain's GCHQ program of sifting through databases of people's email, online chat and Internet browsing histories without prior court authorization.
Other crowd estimates varied, from the official police estimate of 4,800, to 15,000 reported by Der Spiegel. Protesters carried signs reading "Anonymity is not a crime," "Monitoring destroyed democracy" and "Freedom of the press needs information protection."
Organized by 80 sponsors -- including civil society groups, trade unions, the Chaos Computer Club and the FDP, Left, Green and the Pirate parties -- the event was hailed by its backers as a "huge success" as speakers called to abolish German cooperation in the NSA monitoring of cellphone call data and online searches.
Speakers called for the defeat of German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the Sept. 22 federal elections. The NSA spying scandal has become a key issue in the run-up to the election, with Merkel's conservatives still leading at the polls.
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