

Statement on planned Fourth of July demonstrations - sethbannon
http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/speeches_testimonies/3jul13_4th.shtml

======
pfortuny
"NSA does not object to any lawful, peaceful protest."

Come on: is it possible that anyone has felt the need to write this
_seriously_ on the corporate web page of the NSA?

AMAZING.

I _hope_ (but I do not know, they do not say) the NSA also does not object to
free speech, to private property, to freedom of press, to freedom of economic
initiative, to freedom of religion...

EDIT: Come to think of it, it is possible that they had internal conversations
like _what are we going to do with these people?_. And then the chiefs said:
"hey, we do not object to these demonstrations!".

Scary...

~~~
malandrew
Everyone in the NSA swears to uphold the Constitution, not objecting to
lawful, peaceful protests should be a no brainer that goes without saying[0].
Hopefully they post this on an internal bulletin board for their employees as
well. It would have been nice if they had made a statement to the effect that
they will not collect any information on people participating in the protests.

[0] First Amendment excerpt: "... the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances ..."

~~~
mikeash
It's like saying, "I will not kill you today." The literal meaning is
innocent, but the fact that it was stated at all has terrifying implications.

------
xelipe
This is how I read between the lines and understood their statement: The
Fourth of July reminds us as Americans of the freedoms and rights all citizens
of our country are guaranteed by our Constitution. Among those is freedom of
speech, often exercised in protests of various kinds. NSA does not object to
any lawful, peaceful protest but be advised that we will be monitoring your
freedom of speech and anything you say or ever had said may be used against
you in a secret court of law.

~~~
pfortuny
Also

"We shall test your American citizenship by tossing a 1% loaded coin. If it
shows tails, you are American, otherwise you are a foreigner and can be
lawfully, legally, constitutionally, military and otherwise politically
surveilled."

It would be good if they clarified that as well.

~~~
jchung
I think this is really one of the most important discussions we should be
having as a society. What obligations ought we hold our government to as far
as the rights of non-citizens? Right now the obligations of the government to
non-citizens is likely very minimal (IANAL, But I'd love to hear a
Constitutionalist's expert opinion on this front).

What limits ought we to establish on our government(s) with regard to the
rights of citizens of other nations?

~~~
kzrdude
I think it's better to leave citizenship out, or focus on treating your own
citizens. The rest should follow (this is also what Scahill says in the
following story): American citizenship does not protect you from targeted
assassination.

[http://www.democracynow.org/2013/4/23/jeremy_scahill_the_sec...](http://www.democracynow.org/2013/4/23/jeremy_scahill_the_secret_story_behind)

~~~
rayiner
No, American citizenship does not great a blanket protection against being
killed by the military while waging war against the U.S. It guarantees you
nothing more and nothing less than "due process." What process is "due"
(literally, "warranted") is an inherently context-sensitive question. What
process is "due" to someone who spent a decade waging war against the U.S.
while refusing to submit to the justice system of any country?

~~~
mikeash
The trouble with making it context-sensitive like that is, how do you
demonstrate that the person deserves the lower standard?

Your question is mis-phrased. It should be stated as, "What process is due to
someone _who is accused of_ spending a decade waging war against the US?"

It appears to be to be completely nonsensical to use the gravity of the
accusations against a person to decide what kind of trial (or not) they should
receive. The whole point of the trial is to _find out_ whether the accusations
are, in fact, true.

~~~
kzrdude
Don't ignore the teenager son who was also a victim, separately. No one in
government has been willing to admit that this killing was anything other than
intentional.

------
tokenadult
A much more simple explanation of the NSA statement is that press
organizations asked for a statement in relation to the protests planned for
today (one of which I will attend, as I have mentioned in recent Hacker News
comments) and the NSA's press officers provided a statement. Nothing more,
nothing less, nothing else. Yes, NSA officers, like all officers of the
federal government, take oaths to uphold the United States Constitution. Most
take those oaths very seriously and cherish the constitutional system of the
United States. I will be out protesting in public this evening (and I don't
care who knows that, as I am not afraid to express my opinions on public
policy) to indicate my family's support for the Bill of Rights and desire that
all NSA programs be overseen effectively by Congress and fully in accord with
the law. That said, I don't begrudge the thousands of NSA employees the
opportunity to join me in saying that all Americans have the right of peaceful
protest and that is a right we can all cherish as Americans.

See

[http://www.aeinstein.org/organizationsde07.html](http://www.aeinstein.org/organizationsde07.html)

for free, downloadable resources in a variety of languages about what you can
do to support the worldwide movement for transitions from dictatorship to
democracy. Don't be afraid to do your part to make the world a better place.

------
koops
"NSA does not object to any lawful, peaceful protest."

From an organization that spies on the world, that sounds sinister. As in "if
we did object, we could do something about your 'lawful' protest."

~~~
Kylekramer
How does that follow? I know the NSA is enemy number 1 around HN right now,
but how does saying they don't object to lawful protests imply that if they
did object to the lawful protests they would disrupt them somehow?

If my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle.

~~~
TallGuyShort
It's like me telling you that I don't object to you teaching your kids about
any particular religion. When the hell did I even enter the equation? It's the
implication that the right to protest might even have to be clarified that
shows the NSA is either very presumptious about its authority or really is as
politically motivated as we all like to think it is.

------
pstuart
How do we know if the NSA is acting lawfully? Why can't we have better
oversight and transparency?

<sarcasm> After all, they have nothing to hide, right? </sarcasm>

------
jchung
I'm growing increasingly concerned about the tone here in HN whenever
something is posted about the NSA. This statement on July 4th demonstrations
is essentially non-news. Why isn't it more likely that the NSA was getting a
ton of media requests for a statement and decided to make it official that
they wouldn't make a public objection to the protests? I'd like to see us (the
HN community) continue to engage in thoughtful discussions, but the reactions
I'm seeing right now are distractions from that. Let's not derail the
conversation. Stick to facts where you can, request information where you
don't have facts, and make your position known on what we would like to see
our government(s) put in place to secure our freedoms and protect us. Let's
not muddy the waters any further. Happy 4th.

~~~
ccernaf
Agreed. If the headline was "NSA refuses to comment on the Restore the Fourth
protests", people would just comment that the NSA wasn't recognizing the
protests, and that protesting would be useless, as the NSA would stick to
their current attitude. I really don't know how the NSA could have responded
better, besides actually promising to listen to the arguments of the
protesters. It seems like a "damned if you do, damned if you don't"-type
situation for the NSA. If one accepts that the NSA is /fundamentally/ flawed,
which I doubt it is, nothing it says can change ones mind, including a public
statement of it respecting people's rights to protest. The fact that it even
has to release a statement though is good - it means that the NSA has realized
that there is a backlash against their tactics.

I would like of course for the NSA to change some of its practices... but the
amount of hate it is getting on HN is ridiculous.

------
ape4
I assume they record the IP-address of everyone who visits that page. And then
watches activity to/from that IP-address for ten years.

~~~
datalus
I would think the majority of IPs would be dynamic... If you're really worried
about it, clone or spoof a new MAC address after powering off your modem. Then
just power it on :p

------
joshdotsmith
I like that they felt the need to preemptively defend their work as "lawful."
This feels like a whole lot of doublespeak.

~~~
fleitz
Gulags were lawful. It's not doublespeak. The problem is not the NSA, it's the
whole system.

If baseball isn't interstate commerce, but growing your own wheat is for your
own consumption, you know the whole state is rotten to the core. There is no
objectivity it's just do whatever you want and if you're powerful justify it
later.

~~~
tehwalrus
If it's ruled unconstitutional, then it wasn't lawful surely.

~~~
fleitz
If you can take someone's land to build a mall, I'm pretty sure the court will
have no problem with this...

Even if the have a problem with it I'm sure they'll carve out a minor
exception, and no one will face any consequences...

------
MWil
I like how they called the Constitution a clock

------
andyl
That's a nice constitution ya got there.

It would be a shame if anything were to happen to it.

------
logn
Excellent. I thought we were granted the right to protest by God, so at least
we know the NSA isn't standing in the way of God. Hopefully they'll let us
know if/when that changes and we can assist the NSA in their new set of goals.

------
ispolin
I don't want to sound apologetic for the actions of NSA as a whole, and those
who surely pressured them into those actions, and those that were aware of
them but did not object, but I did take heart in the first sentence, "The
Fourth of July reminds us as Americans of the freedoms and rights all citizens
of our country are guaranteed by our Constitution."

I hope this is a sign that at least some people in the NSA recognize that what
happened was an egregious breach of the spirit of our constitution, and the
principle of government by public consent. It would be nice if it meant that
some of NSA's members welcome, for their organization, public accountability,
clear limits on power afforded to them, and recourse for pressure from other
parts of the government to violate these things.

Regardless of whether this is just wistful thinking or not, we should continue
to bring awareness to this issue, and take action.

I hope the form of this action will be public awareness, peaceful protests,
crowd-funding representatives, and holding those elected representatives
legally accountable for their campaign promises (because I do not see how we
can have a representative democracy if the words of the representatives before
they are elected are so divorced from their actions after).

I hope the result will be legal safeguards and public oversight to make sure
that no federal agency can violate the constitution, and act against public
consent, no mater how secret their mission.

(edited to include the bit about public awareness)

------
monkeynotes
Please stay in your free speech zones while 'lawfully' protesting.

------
sethbannon
I bet the NSA is going to love the inbound referrals from "Hacker News".

~~~
eli
I'm quite certain at least a few NSA members are regular readers. The NSA is
not an evil monolith.

~~~
lsiebert
I don't think that most people who think about it believe that the NSA is
evil. But what it is doing for ostensibly good reasons are actions that can be
labeled as evil.

But the truth is, it does those activities because the White House says it
should, and Congress is ok with it. The NSA will never not obey politicians.

You want change, write to your Congressional representatives. Write to the
major party Committees, and tell them that you will only support and donate to
candidates that explicitly seek to change the surveillance of Americans. Find
your local party headquarters and your convention delegates, and have respect
for privacy added to the party platform.

Protesting the NSA is good because it organizes people, but then they need to
be targeted where they will have an effect. But any real change will come from
the political process. The NSA doesn't object. The NSA also isn't going to
change anything because of the protests.

------
MarcScott
"NSA does not object to any lawful, peaceful protest."

But we will be monitoring those that organise and participate, and attach nice
little red flags next to their names.

"NSA and its employees work diligently and lawfully every day, around the
clock, to protect the nation and its people."

I disagree with only one word of the above sentence.

~~~
fexl
I disagree with two words. :)

~~~
datalus
Or just negate two words ;)

------
late2part
Okay. Great. Our rulers are going to allow us to protest. They're not even
going to constrain us to a free speech zone. Thanks!

~~~
dragonwriter
> Okay. Great. Our rulers are going to allow us to protest. They're not even
> going to constrain us to a free speech zone. Thanks!

If "our rulers" were not going to allow protest, or to restrict the time place
and manner, the vehicle for those restrictions wouldn't likely be the NSA
anyway, so a statement that the NSA doesn't object is somewhat tangential.

------
hugogee
Its a little distorted to me at least, that the very people we employ would
take a perspective of granting concent to its employers.

------
hedonist
_NSA does not object to any lawful, peaceful protest._

Especially when it gives us an opportunity to build a geo-associational
database of potential troublemakers cross-referenced with surveillance cam
data, social media breadcrumbs and other applicable metadata sources.

You know, for the day when things get _serious_.

------
javajosh
Thank goodness the NSA clarified that peaceful protesting is A-OK with them.
Since they have no respect for the 4th amendment it is heartening that they at
least retain some respect for the 1st. Of course, the cynic in me realizes
that an organization that shreds the 4th would really, really love the 1st,
and indeed encourage people to communicate electronically AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE.

~~~
tobylane
Without the first amendment how else would yesterday's banal conversations
exist to implicate you in next decades' fortieth deadliest planned and
thwarted attack?

------
dynamic99
That is the most generic statement ever...

------
e3pi
" NSA and its employees work diligently and lawfully every day, around the
clock..."

That's right, remind us in every public statement of you're constantly
365/7/24 surveillance of our face, speech, writings, and body.

