That rule was put in place after the Swartz petition passed the initial limit of 25,000 in the first day or two. At the time of the change, they specifically said the new 100,000 limit would only apply to new petitions, so the Swartz petition was still under the original 25,000 signature rule.

Remember what Snowden said about policies changing?

For those of us who don't know, what did Snowden say about policies changing?

> More detail on how direct NSA's accesses are is coming, but in general, the reality is this: if an NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, etc analyst has access to query raw SIGINT databases, they can enter and get results for anything they want. Phone number, email, user id, cell phone handset id (IMEI), and so on - it's all the same. The restrictions against this are policy based, not technically based, and can change at any time.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/17/edward-snowden-n...

This petition was created when the goal was 25,000 signatures, before it was increased to 100,000.

At the time it was 25,000.

> SIGNATURES NEEDED BY FEBRUARY 11, 2013 TO REACH GOAL OF 25,000