To President Barack Obama and many members of Congress, National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden is a traitor. But to hundreds protesting the agency’s surveillance programs, Snowden remains a hero who unveiled wrongdoings and infringements on constitutional liberties that must be righted.
More than 200 gathered in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol on this crisp October Saturday to protest the National Security Agency’s surveillance program, made public by Snowden. The ‘Stop Watching Us’ rally, backed by a bevy of groups, served as a dysfunctional marriage of organizations from Anonymous to the libertarian Young Americans for Liberty, but all in attendance had the same goal in mind: end the NSA’s spying.
“It’s a complete and total violation of all of our privacy rights,” Olivia Valentine, a 22-old-student at George Mason University, told Red Alert Politics. “They say that privacy rights don’t exist in the Constitution explicitly, but they have the Fourth Amendment … We don’t give consent to the government spying on our emails or our phone calls, text messages, Snap Chats, anything. By them just coming in and blatantly take all of our things, all of our information, it’s just wrong. Absolutely wrong.”
Valentine attended the rally with members of Young Americans for Liberty, a libertarian group formed after Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul ended his race in 2008.
The event had all the makings of an Occupy Wall Street protest, with those in attendance taking a page out of the group’s song book, chanting “This is what democracy looks like” as they marched through the streets of Washington, D.C. Members of anti-capitalism group even attended, moving from Zuccotti Park to the National Mall.
Starting at Union Station early Saturday morning, protesters marched to the Capitol Reflecting Pool where they enjoyed music and speeches from a host of anti-surveillance proponents including former NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake to Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.)
Amash has become the poster boy for the anti-NSA movement, and he was presented a petition with more than 550,000 signatures calling on Congress to reveal the full extent of the agency’s programs.
“We’re going to keep fighting and we’re going to pass something to reign in the NSA,” Amash told the crowd. “But let me tell you, the NSA is fighting back. The establishment is fighting back. … The Constitution makes what they’re doing illegal.”
But for the protesters, the rally was not just about ending the NSA surveillance programs. A rainbow flag fluttered in the breeze as shouts of repealing the Patriot Act echoed through the air. Members of Code Pink gathered to sing while the rally’s master of ceremonies proclaimed everyone in attendance “was black today.”
And the “Stop Watching Us” rally wasn’t confined to just Washington, D.C. Protesters took to the streets of Los Angeles, Austin and Chicago in satellite rallies, as well as in eight cities throughout Germany. Documents recently revealed the NSA had bugged German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s telephone since 2002.
