I hate to say it, but I screwed up. I had heard of this event a couple of weeks ago and meant to get involved a whole lot more than I managed to do. I actually heard of it the first time from a post by Gene’O at the Sourcerer Blog. He had a great page on his blog all made up especially for this event (and of course it’ll be an ongoing fight, so check it out and follow it to keep informed).
I wanted to do something to help promote this event. I wanted to rouse people up to take a stand and get involved. I meant to make at least a post of my own (and hopefully a page) about it, but I’ve been so busy lately, the best I could manage to do was to sign the petition, email my congressmen, and post on my Twitter and Facebook pages. I hope at least a couple of people noticed it yesterday and took some action. 🙂
Today I got an email from the ‘Campaign to Stop Government Spying’, ’cause’ I signed up for it a while back. They sent me an update on how things went yesterday and a reminder that the fight is far from over. Here’s what’s they reported…
The numbers were astonishing. The Day We Fight Back was featured on over 5,000 websites, generated 84,000 calls, and 172,000 were emails sent while our petition here on Causes reached over 25,000 signatures!
In addition to the tremendous online success Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has filed suit against the NSA in what will surly become a landmark case against mass surveillance.
It’s a good start, but obviously not good enough since the congress is not yet willing to completely throw out the NSA (and TSA, and the PATRIOT ACT, and Obamacare, etc) and get back to Constitutional government!
Personally, I wish I could throw out (with appropriate punishment) every one of those politicians who allowed this to happen in the first place. Every single one of them who voted to support the NSA in ANY way.
The NSA is an affront to every principle this country was founded on. Its entire purpose is at war with the 4th amendment (and the 5th)(and all the rest of them too!).
I can hardly believe how far we have come in just MY lifetime. We’ve moved from a place where most of us could all live our lives in (relative) peace and prosperity, almost like in the TV shows “Leave it to Beaver” or Andy Griffiths Mayberry,…
To now we’ve somehow wound up in George Orwells 1984, or Huxleys Brave New World. Maybe a mixture of those 2 with a big bunch of Kafkas Metomorphosis thrown in. In all reality, we’ve far surpassed even the worst nightmares of those visionary authors.
The NSA (along with the TSA and a bunch of other alphabet agencies) are a BIG part of what’s wrong with America.
I don’t agree with those who say we’ve got the government we ‘deserve’. I don’t believe ANYONE ‘deserves’ a government like this. One that treats us as criminals. One that thinks it has the right to track and CONTROL EVERY aspect of our lives.
Why in the world would ANYONE think anybody deserves that? It reminds me of the self righteous hypocrites who think everyone but themselves are sinners and belong in hell. They get a huge enjoyment out of feeling so smug and superior. But no one is perfect (including them), so they deserve to go to hell (and will) too.
The people who think we deserve this are just the same. So, we deserve this suck ass government we have because of what, exactly?
We’re ALL in the same boat! We need to figure that out and stand together to do something to save ourselves from sinking. We need to throw overboard the ones who are bashing holes in our hull and sabotaging our pumps!
Maybe then we can save ourselves and find a way to repair our country to one that will help better our lives again instead of the opposite.
This campaign was called “the Day We Fight Back”. We don’t need A day we fight back, we need to fight back EVERY DAY until they get off our backs and give us back our freedom!
Illegal government spy programs are not the ONLY things we need to fight. We can START with that, then take on the next. We need to keep going until we have ALL of our freedom back.
I hope I can see that someday. I hope I can even see a serious START to it. I know I’m not the one, but there must be SOMEONE out there who can come up with something effective, some way to make some progress, some way to wake people up to what’s REALLY going on and get them to take an interest…
Anyone?
I apologize for taking so long to find this. My opinion is, we need a National Security Agency, we just don’t need them to do the kind of massive spying they’re doing. I agree about the Constitutional problems, and about the Patriot Act. That was a bad piece of legislation, passed at a time when people were gripped by fear, without enough debate, and with a sunset clause that was included just so they could call it temporary. It centralized some things that would have been better off remaining compartmentalized, and it did not actually address the problem – that some humans made mistakes interpreting intelligence and didn’t see a threat in time.
No problem Gene’O, I take a long time to answer sometimes too. Just too much to keep up with.
As far as the NSA, I think it was/is a HORRIBLE ‘law’. I think it is completely unconstitutional. I total violation of our 4th, 5th, 9th, 10th amendment rights (along with many others).
I do not see the need for them to spy on EVERYBODY in the entire world. They should have some sort of probable cause. They should need to have enough of a probable cause to go to an HONEST judge and get a WARRANT. NOT one of the ones in their pockets! The so called warrants should NOT be handed out every time they ask for one (which they are- only something like 2 out of 2 million denied!).
I do NOT think it’s worth violating ANYONES rights like this for any reason, much less EVERYONES rights for NO reason, which is exactly what they are doing.
You’re right, they passed these ‘laws’ with no debate, through nothing more than FEAR and other emotional manipulation. This is NOT a legitimate way to pass legislation. It is coercion and therefore is invalid.
You’re right, it did not address the problem. It was never intended to fix the problem. It was intended to CONTROL the population (us). Think about how they tried for years, decades even to get to do all those things they got handed to them on a silver platter since 9-11. Indefinite detention, worldwide warantless unlimited spying, droning people to death on a whim, my GOD!
NONE of that is in any way compatible with a free country. No, it is ONLY done in a police state, which is what we have become. 🙁