Thomas Drake at ‘Restore the Fourth’ Rally: ‘We the People Do Not Consent to the Surveillance State’ [View all]

[WillyT]

Thomas Drake at ‘Restore the Fourth’ Rally: ‘We the People Do Not Consent to the Surveillance State’
By: Kevin Gosztola - FDL
Thursday July 4, 2013 8:43 pm

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Demonstrations to restore the Fourth Amendment were held all over the country this Fourth of July. The demonstrations were spurred by what National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed in the past months on United States government surveillance programs.

At the rally in Washington, DC, another National Security Agency whistleblower, Thomas Drake, declared, “On this day, the 4th of July, 2013, I call for a new American revolution declaring our independence from the surveillance state and government control of information.”

He called on citizens to “reflect on how the US has become the very kind of secret undemocratic authoritarian imperialist nation against whom we fought the first American revolution.”

Drake condemned the government for “unchaining itself from the Constitution” and for “vacuuming and harvesting vast amounts of personal information about each and every one of us.” He warned the government is using “general warrants” to “find out everything there is to know” about Americans and collecting data with few, if any, restraints.

“We the people do not consent to the surveillance state,” Drake declared. “We will not forsake our rights for the sake of national security. We will not accept that the ends justifies the means. We will not accept that the government granting itself license to steal our liberty and our information away from us.”

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Link (we/Video): http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/07/04/thomas-drake-at-restore-the-fourth-rally-we-the-people-do-not-consent-to-the-surveillance-state/