NSA Protest: Lady Liberty And Uncle Sam Fight For Our Rights In San Francisco
Lady Liberty and Uncle Sam held an NSA protest in San Francisco.
Most people in the US celebrate Independence Day by having a barbecue, drinking beer (or soda pop if they’re underage), and watching fireworks, but not these patriotic citizens. Around 300 people gathered Thursday at San Francisco’s Civic Center to hold an NSA protest, some dressed up as the iconic characters Lady Liberty and Uncle Sam. Others simply carried an American flag, but all of them wore the mantle of American pride in an effort to fight the spying habits of the government.
The NSA protest involved the crowd chanting “NSA, go away,” and “Restore the fourth day” in an effort to tell the National Security Agency that their surveillance system violates the fourth amendment to the US Constitution. The first stop in the march was the San Francisco Federal Building where activist Parker Higgins of the Electronic Frontier Foundation blared out over a loudspeaker, “We need the government to see that the American people are outraged. Make no mistake, these programs are illegal.”
Perhaps the most notorious protest of them all started about a month ago when former CIA employee and whistle-blower Edward Snowden leaked top-secret government documents showing America just how much the agency taps into our lives. Government officials insist that NSA spying is set up to find potential terrorist activity before it happens, but the data has been allegedly used for other purposes such as tracking internet activity for Hollywood agencies.
PRISM and the 2015 program are the largest offenders of the NSA invasion of privacy. Even politicians, those who might have the most to gain from it, have come out against it.
Citizens of San Francisco are not alone in their NSA protest actions, but the use of Lady Liberty and Uncle Sam on Independence Day may be enough to show the government that even the most patriotic among us oppose these programs.
What do you think of the NSA protests in San Francisco involving people dressed as Lady Liberty and Uncle Sam?
