Techies concerned over NSA surveillance will march in D.C., proclaiming ‘Stop Watching Us’

[Indi Guy]

Source: Washington Post

Matthew Meola launched into his talking points haltingly. “We’re concerned about this, um, bulk collection,” he said, rehearsing the message he planned to deliver to congressional offices. “We’re concerned it violates the Constitution.” But the words became more fluid as he channeled his concern Friday about NSA surveillance, in preparation for a lobbying trip to Capitol Hill demanding closer scrutiny of the secretive agency. If the spiel didn’t come easily at first, well, he’s not a lobbyist. Like so many of the protesters turning out for this weekend’s Stop Watching Us march, he’s a tech guy: a computer scientist from Cambridge, Mass.

Oh, did you expect anti-tech folks — the tinfoil hat crowd, the off-the-gridders? Instead, it’s the super-techie community that has been agitated about the government’s power to collect and analyze our personal data — “people who care” about the issue “because they understand it,” said Chris Lewis, vice president of Public Knowledge, one of the event’s nonprofit-group organizers.

“This is probably the defining issue of a young generation of technologists,” said Matt Simons of ThoughtWorks, a software developer that is one of the weekend’s corporate sponsors. “If you’re not coming out on the right side of history, you’re in the wrong industry.”

Organizers hope to draw a couple of thousand protesters to the rally and march, set to kick off at 11:30 a.m. Saturday in front of Union Station before moving to the Reflecting Pool at the Capitol. Speakers will include Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), former congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake and former Army Lt. Dan Choi, who is a gay-rights activist...

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/techies-concerned-over-nsa-surveillance-will-march-in-dc-proclaiming-stop-watching-us/2013/10/25/5bedb546-3da7-11e3-b7ba-503fb5822c3e_story.html

[PSPS]

1. Condescending much?

Well, it is in the Lifestyles section of the Washington Post.

[sofa king]

2. I think the snide tone of the article...

... centers on the fact that these people are walking out of their secure, disparate, encrypted and semi-anonymous environment and going to the very place that is absolutely certain to record and identify them, and match that data to the vast library of prior recorded data, thus improving the government's ability to track and monitor them by protesting the government's ability to track and monitor them.

It's like a crowd of mice protesting mousetraps by organizing a march on the mousetraps.

Perhaps not coincidentally, one of the most influential Directors of the CIA, Allen Dulles, was a great admirer of the Tsar of Russia's counterespionage programs, which often centered around the idea of infiltrating agents into the leadership of potentially subversive organizations and generating ways of identifying the group's members, structure, intentions and plans. One way to do that was to organize public protests which would draw out members and potential recruits, so that they could be better identified and tracked.

Eventually, the government agents would assume operational control of the subversive groups, turning them into false-flag operations working for the government instead of against it, always keeping the fear of attack on the front pages in order to quash public dissent.


Despite Dulles' admiration for the concept, it did not save the Tsar's own skin, nor that of his government. Remember that, Washington Post.

[Jefferson23]

3. Great post. +1. n/t

[Octafish]

4. Tsar didn't have NSA tech

So far, it's NSA 91 - Democracy 0.

[Indi Guy]

5. What the heck...

Let's just all turn ourselves in to the government for a cavity search, get an rfd tag implanted and route all of our communications devices through an NSA mainframe. Then we can finally put that pesky Constitutional thing to bed. Controversy -- over.

[Octafish]

6. Have read where DUers said Constitution's obsolete.

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/10023793016

Seeing it in writing really gets to me.

[Indi Guy]

7. Thanks, that was a disturbing read.

In a nutshell, I guess when the government breaks the law -- it's the law's fault.

[bemildred]

8. I love people who talk like that. They are such fools.

Everything looks so inevitable they way they see it.

"The power struggle will be resolved as a pure contest of willpower." Where's Bruce Willis? This is clearly a hero movie.

[Indi Guy]

9. If those who oath to uphold our Constitution and obey the law are to be held accountable...

...Ill take Woodward & Bernstein over Willis.

[Blue_Tires]

10. off topic, but that is some truly god-awful shitty writing...

So is this a new march? or the one that happened this past weekend??