The Day We Fight Back: Are Protests Worth it if They’re Hokey?

Yesterday, “The
Day We Fight Back” rallies took place in 24 cities around the
world in rejection of National Security Adminstration’s (NSA)
surveillance. I attended the San Francisco event in order to
witness the freedom fighters converge. Despite its inspiring title,
the protest quickly went limp.

The event took place outside the AT&T building where
whistleblower Mark Klein in 2006
exposed Room 614A, one of the NSA’s
telecommunications interception sites. One group showed up early
with an impressive one-to-five scale model of a predator drone and
plenty of picket signs. Mentions of surveillance cheerleader Sen.
Diane Feinstein (D-CA) elicited universal boos. All the pieces of a
good protest were accumulating.

Klein himself and the Electronic
Frontier Foundation‘s (EFF) Rainey Reitman addressed the crowd
over loudspeakers.

“This is our internet. We’re going to fight for it. We’re going
to defend it. We’re going to make sure you can’t constantly
surveill us… and chill our free speech,” said Reitman, who
detailed the EFF’s legislative action against the NSA.

A Navy veteran who wished to remain anonymous shared his
feelings. “I took an oath to defend the Constitution against all
enemies, foreign or domestic. When I see the government spying on
the people, it tells me that the government has declared that I and
the American people are an enemy.”

Unfortunately, organizers compromised the gravity and sincerity
of these messages. Not once but twice they played The Police’s
“Every Breath You Take” (“Every move you make… I’ll be watching
you.” Do you get it? It’s a joke about surveillance. You get it,
right?) and projected a Miley Cyrus parody titled “Party at the NSA”
on the side of the AT&T building. These seemed particularly
tone-deaf, since they aired before a memorial video for the late
internet activist Aaron Schwartz.

Some participants also eventually repurposed an
enormous circular protest sign about constitutional rights by
playing parachute-type games
reminiscent of grade school gym class. Guy Fawkes masks and
meme-covered t-shirts added to hokiness. After about an hour, the
protest’s momentum drained.

The San Francisco Projection Department, which co-hosted the
event, estimates
that it had the highest turnout in the US with 300 participants,
which is underwhelming for such a tech-centric city and not a good
indication of how the others fared.

“The Day We Fight Back” was far more impressive online than it
was on the streets. 

Over 6,000 websites and organizations, from Reddit to the
American Civil Liberties Union, expressed solidarity. Google and
other internet giants
signed a letter to the president calling for reform. Supporters
have placed over 87,800
calls and sent 181,900 emails to their
representatives. For all the “slacktivism”
gibes web-based initiatives get, they do seem to have a real home
field advantange when it comes to invigorating people about
internet issues.