February 22, 2006, Fight the power with your talking dog
For those of you in the New York area, you might want to consider joining me and a few hundred of our friends at a Bill of Rights reading/protest of NSA internal spying etc. sponsored by Move-On.Org; tonight's protest is 6 pm, at Federal Hall on Wall Street, sight of President George Washington's first inauguration, on this, President Washington's natural birthday.
Be there. Aloha.
Update: Maybe around 200 people showed up for the 20-25 minute protest, mostly upscale looking, mostly older than me (and I ain't so young); Move-On was kind enough to provide many with signs ("Bush broke the law"; "Stop illegal wiretaps") candles and copies of the bill of rights, which were read in (attempted) synchronous chorus. (Your talking dog's own hand-made sign had two parts; the larger part said "Stop illegal wiretaps now," and the other side said "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue," a quote from one of my favorite left-wing nuts, the late Barry Goldwater.)
Comments
Will there be a counter-protest in favor of spying on the international telephone calls of terrorists?
Posted by Matt at February 22, 2006 1:55 PM
Hard to say... Given that the Stock Exchange is across the street, one might ask "will there be warrants"? (a little stockbroker and lawyer humor...)
Posted by the talking dog at February 22, 2006 3:51 PM
"the larger part said "Stop illegal wiretaps now,"
As I've been saying since December, I wish people would stop diminishing the issue down to "wiretaps." The problem isn't wiretaps. It's eavesdropping/datamining on a massive scale, not putting a tap on individual wires. If you're opposed only to wiretaps, you're not opposed to the vastly more important compromise of the switches and the satellite transmissions. "Stop illegal eavesdropping" would encompass most of that. "Stop illegal wiretapping" means they could stop the illegal wiretapping, and continue with 99% of the warrantless eavesdropping. Possibly that's not what you want to be saying? As importantly, it perpetuates misunderstanding and lack of knowledge of the important issues at stake.
Posted by Gary Farber at February 24, 2006 10:31 PM