
Restore the Fourth Organizes Protests Against Unconstitutional Surveillance - ndesaulniers
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/07/restore-fourth-campaign-organizes-protests-against-unconstitutional-surveillance
======
sinak
SF HNers, check out the event details here:
[https://www.facebook.com/events/553989834652790/](https://www.facebook.com/events/553989834652790/)

If you're elsewhere, find the nearest event on the Rt4 homepage:
[http://www.restorethefourth.net/](http://www.restorethefourth.net/)

(Edit to add a shameless plug) If you're a dev interested in creating
campaigns like this, sign up here: [http://sina.is/task-
force](http://sina.is/task-force)

~~~
samstave
I find a Facebook signup page for anti NSA rally to be highly ironic and
misguided.

Sure, I understand you want to have a good reach to people, but aren't we in
agreement we don't trust anything that Facebook does at this point.

EDIT: Just to be clear - I 1000% support any and all protesting of the NSA,
PRISM, FB and every other companies cooperation with this world-wide spying on
all communications.

~~~
wavesounds
I disagree. If they want to waste time and money spying on us then that just
further proves our point because we are normal patriotic Americans with
nothing to hide.

We're not going to play their game and go off and cover our faces in public or
not use the most popular sites on the internet because its a stupid game and
isn't worth playing when theres real problems this country faces.

I plan on holding a sign at this protest that says "The only thing we have to
fear is fear itself." Once everyday normal Americans realize theres nothing to
be afraid of these clear violations of the 4th amendment will stop.

~~~
threeseed

        Once everyday normal Americans realize theres nothing to be afraid of these clear violations of the 4th amendment will stop.
    

Problem is everyday normal Americans fully support these programs.

I really wish people were smarter in these situations and rallied around
specific, actionable requests e.g. get rid of FISA courts and have the normal
legal process with full transparency. Requests that ordinary people can think
are sensible, common-sense improvements to make. But hey I guess people just
want a fun day out instead of actually implementing meaningful change.

~~~
bendoernberg
The demands are:

1\. Senate committee to investigate unconstitutional programs, ala Church
committee

2\. Amend statutes to prohibit blanket surveillance

3\. DNI Clapper's resignation for lying to Congress and the American people at
the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Glad to see you've done your research, and breathlessly awaiting the
nationwide campaign you're organizing that will be "implementing meaningful
change."

------
bendoernberg
Please join us in NYC:
[https://www.facebook.com/events/378073495627134/](https://www.facebook.com/events/378073495627134/)
[http://restorethefourthnyc.org/](http://restorethefourthnyc.org/)

We're expecting a much larger crowd than the FB page would indicate; we've
been doing a lot of offline outreach in the community, and obviously not
everyone's comfortable signing up on FB nowadays :)

------
aspensmonster
I too take irony in utilizing Facebook to organize this sort of protest.
Regardless, the Austin Facebook page is here:

[https://www.facebook.com/RestoreThe4thAustin](https://www.facebook.com/RestoreThe4thAustin)

Hope to see any fellow Austinites there. Starts at 11AM at the capital
building, which has seen plenty of protest in the past few days given Governor
Rick Infinite-Special-Sessions Perry's latest call to special session on a
controversial abortion bill. Judging by the Austin subreddit, it seems many
are in support and plan on being there for Restore the Fourth since it's in
the morning and won't interfere with evening celebration plans with family and
friends.

------
jaekwon
Wow, HNers for restore the fourth! Hello comrades.

I'd like to create or join a working technical organization for the creation
and distribution of existing of liberating technology, such as distributed
social networks with strong perfect forward secrecy encryption, alternative
currency systems etc.

RestoreTheFourth protests will be a great place to find more like minded
techies, so let's organize before the 4th and spread the word during the
protest.

Please join me, `fourthtech` on cryptocat, or see you in front of the Civic
Center.

------
jayfuerstenberg
With each passing successful terrorist attack the effectiveness of this
surveillance system will be questioned. It's already considered highly
ineffective...

[http://bayesianbiologist.com/2013/06/06/how-likely-is-the-
ns...](http://bayesianbiologist.com/2013/06/06/how-likely-is-the-nsa-prism-
program-to-catch-a-terrorist/)

In the meantime keep protesting (to be seen and heard) and use technology to
thwart said surveillance.

Don't listen to the "if you use encryption they'll definitely watch you"
logic. Your messages are still encrypted until they brute-force their way
through (a very long process compounded by how many people are using
encryption).

If you don't use encryption they might not watch now you but when they do
they'll see everything guaranteed.

Privacy is a basic human right that cannot be granted or taken away by any
institution, be it government or other.

~~~
threeseed
What type of nonsense is this ? What that article fails to take into
consideration is that ONE just ONE terrorist act can cause unprecedented
damage to consumer and business confidence, economic outlooks, employment,
tourism etc as was demonstrated during 9/11.

It's like saying don't worry about keeping planes safe because the chance of
one crashing is so small.

And according to the NSA chief (who is unlikely to straight out lie to
congress) said that more than 50 potential terrorist events have been thwarted
because of these intelligence programs:

[http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/nsa-leak-keith-
alexand...](http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/nsa-leak-keith-
alexander-92971.html)

~~~
betterunix
"according to the NSA chief (who is unlikely to straight out lie to congress)"

Have you not been paying attention to the news lately?

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/11/james-clapper-
nsa-s...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/11/james-clapper-nsa-
surveillance_n_3424620.html)

[http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/...](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2013/06/fire_dni_james_clapper_he_lied_to_congress_about_nsa_surveillance.html)

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-
checker/post/james-...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-
checker/post/james-clappers-least-untruthful-statement-to-the-
senate/2013/06/11/e50677a8-d2d8-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_blog.html)

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/12/james-clapper-
in...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/12/james-clapper-intelligence-
chief-criticism)

I suppose if you do enough mental acrobatics you can find a way to distinguish
"the least untruthful" statement from a "straight out lie."

------
ajays
I don't mean to sound like a cynic, but: I don't think much will happen unless
the number of protesters is in the many millions. Here's why: think back to
Occupy. What did that movement want? A simple prosecution of the criminals who
precipitated the 2008 crisis. But till date nothing has happened. Here we're
talking about the government itself committing violations; what are the
chances they'll do anything, when they did nothing to the bankers?

TL;DR: the only way we have a chance in hell is to have a __HUGE __turnout.

~~~
raamdev
So wouldn't it make more sense to promote a turnout rather than talk down the
possibility of turning out achieving anything? I'll be at the Old State house
in Boston at 9:30am.

~~~
ajays
Don't get me wrong! I am saying that we _need_ a huge turnout to effect
change.

------
wmeredith
I'm helping with the effort in Kansas City. If you're here, please come show
your support on the 4th:
[https://www.facebook.com/RestoreTheFourthKansasCity](https://www.facebook.com/RestoreTheFourthKansasCity)

------
jayfuerstenberg
People also need to educate themselves on encryption, in case the government
doesn't care to hear their voice.

Stand up with technology and not just policy.

~~~
bigiain
\-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1

This.

My current advice/hints/practice (note: this is from a non-US perspective, but
apart from the content of emails/phonecalls, most of the points below would
still be applicable even if I thought I technically had 4th amendment
protections):

Make sure you've got GPG/PGP installed and configured, that you've got a
working keypair (with "enough" bits and a securely stored private key and
passphrase), make sure your public key is "findable" either on a public
keyserver in an identifiable/searchable form or on your own
site/blog/.finger/where-ever - and occasionally use it for completely
innocuous communication. (I've committed to sending at least one GPG encrypted
email a week, and regularly communication with friends who'll deal with it
without getting asnnoyed)

Make sure you've got some "disk encryption" installed and configured. Put an
encrypted partition on DropBox/GoogleDrive/SkyDrive/BTSync. Keep some
innocuous (but regularly changing) data in there - as well as using it to
store the occasional file that your really do want encrypted. (I'm using
encfs, and the commercial version BoxCryptor on MacOS)

Download and install the TorBrowser bundle - possibly in your encrypted cloud-
stored partition. Use it every now and then - I make a habit of using it when
browsing government sites for mundane inquiries - including occasionally
intentionally "leaking" personally identifying information over an SSL/Tor
connection, just so if anyone goes looking they'll see a regular law-
abiding(enough) citizen doing mundane law-abiding government interaction over
strongly private connections.

Raise the privacy/spying issue when appropriate to people who've probably not
considered it. Mention that while Google Docs and Gmail are convenient and
inexpensive - that someone might be required to answer due diligence questions
about choosing them over on-premises alternatives one day. Point out that
Skype/Yammer/AIM/gTalk might not be the appropriate channel for discussing
corporate-in-confidence matters. Ask the question about whether the data
jurisdiction of MessageLabs or Outlook.com email meets regulatory obligations
for business or customer (or patient or child) privacy. Don't be a pain in the
ass about it - but become known as "the guy who always makes sure those points
get raised and minuted at the appropriate meetings".

I'd love additional input/ideas for that list…

(signed with bigiain@mightymedia.com.au - 432263ED - available from
pgp.mit.edu) \-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iEYEARECAAYFAlHSkFQACgkQniy+nkMiY+210ACgm0PTJX4TkdXScCQrAbReS/Lp
nBgAoJnkOdGO0hy6xzrS54Y3WKjnZPuK =CaWV \-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

------
babesh
Why don't we just vote the bums out of office? I voted for Obama both times.
Going forward, I sure won't vote for anyone who supports this. We should
organize and figure out who is for and against this.

~~~
fragsworth
Massive surveillance has nearly full bipartisan support. You can't just "vote
them out". You have to somehow convince everyone to vote third party, which
they all think is a wasted vote.

~~~
wavesounds
It's not that hard, you just have to convince half the voters the 4th
amendment is more important then being afraid of terrorists. No politician
wants to support this they just think they have to to appear 'tough' on
terrorism for their constituents.

~~~
dllthomas
Voter turnout for primaries is usually really, really low. You don't need to
convince half of those who do vote; if you just convince 1/4 of those who
could vote but don't, you can dominate the primaries.

Not that this is easy, but it's another option.

------
wavesounds
I'll be at the protests in LA! First at Santa Monica parade at 8am (bring a
whistle to support whistleblowers!) then in DTLA at Pershing square at 1pm.
Hope to see you there!

------
znowi
Now we're talking! This is exciting. People take charge. Way to go, America!

------
rmc
For the record, the forth here only covers US citizens. The other 95% of the
population of the world are not covered by it.

~~~
davvolun
Yeah, US citizens are pissed their own government is spying on them. Spying
between foreign governments is a given, but why should you care: your
government needs to protect your rights, not somebody else's government.

------
dllthomas
Is the site broken for anyone else? Clicking more-info in the map bubbles
takes me to a nonexistent page.
[http://www.restorethefourth.net/protests/](http://www.restorethefourth.net/protests/)
works, though.

------
vaadu
Check out Facebook? Facebook is part of the problem. They are doing a lot of
the government's dirty work.

