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Snowden Rally Suggests Giving Obama the Nixon Treatment
25 October 2013
(LPAC)—In a rare public statement yesterday, Edward Snowden called for support for an October 26 rally against illegal NSA surveillance. He stated, "In the last four months, we’ve learned a lot about our government. We’ve learned that the U.S. intelligence community secretly built a system of pervasive surveillance. Today, no telephone in America makes a call without leaving a record with the NSA. Today, no Internet transaction enters or leaves America without passing through the NSA’s hands. Our representatives in Congress tell us this is not surveillance. They’re wrong. "Now, it’s time for the government to learn from us. On Saturday, the ACLU, EFF, and the rest of the StopWatching.Us coalition are going to D.C. Join us in sending the message: Stop Watching Us." The rally will gather at Washington’s Union Station at 11:30 for a noon march to the National Mall. The coalition includes Detroit’s liberal Democratic Congressman John Conyers, along with conservative Michigan Republican Rep. Justin Amash, the pair who together almost shut down illegal NSA bugging earlier this year, along with numerous public-interest groups and even some corporations. A three and one-half minute video on StopWatching.Us, while never mentioning Obama, clearly implies that he should be given the Richard Nixon treatment and removed from office. Prominent on the video is Daniel Ellsberg, whose "Pentagon Papers" leak began the process which eventually ousted Nixon under threat of impeachment. The scowling Nixon is featured prominently, set against calls for Constitutional rights from Robert Kennedy, Frank Church and Walter Mondale. J. Edgar Hoover appears briefly. The rally and the process behind it appear to be ringing alarm bells among Obama cronies. Obama shill Tom Watson has a long piece in salon.com, dated October 21, titled "Don’t Ally with Libertarians: Ideologues Co-Opt an Anti-NSA Rally," in which he begs his liberal friends to boycott the rally because two or three "Libertarian" groups are among the sponsors. He says he agrees with all of its goals, but liberals should boycott in order not to "convey legitimacy to" Libertarians, whom he compares to child-molesters. |