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We are the 99 percent

Restore the Fourth

Posted 10 years ago on June 11, 2013, 5:32 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt
Tags: nyc, j4, restore the fourth

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Restore the Fourth is a nonviolent grassroots movement protesting indiscriminate government surveillance and the erosion of Fourth Amendment privacy rights. Inspired by recent NSA scandals, Restore the Fourth is planning a series of demonstrations across the U.S to take place this coming July 4th holiday.

In New York City, an organizational meeting will held at 8PM this Wednesday, June 12th, in Washington Square Park (near the Garibaldi statue on the eastern side of the park). Although Restore the Fourth is not formally affiliated with Occupy Wall Street, we encourage occupiers to attend in order to share the lessons we've learned and show our comrades the practices which have been most successful. See below for more information.

Solidarity!

http://www.restorethefourth.net/
http://www.reddit.com/r/restorethefourth/
https://www.facebook.com/RestoreTheFourth
https://twitter.com/Restore_the4th
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Restore-the-Fourth-NYC/311612745638774
https://twitter.com/RestoreThe4thNY

16 Comments

16 Comments


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[-] 3 points by shadz66 (19985) 10 years ago

''Since 9/11, there has been, at first secretly but increasingly openly, a revocation of the bill of rights for which this country fought over 200 years ago. In particular, the fourth and fifth amendments of the US constitution, which safeguard citizens from unwarranted intrusion by the government into their private lives, have been virtually suspended.'' - says Daniel Ellsberg (link below). Further consider that 'The United Stasi of America' & the reality of a despotic, totalitarian, corporate government, is sadly already here - whether Americans want to see that or not.

''Snowden did what he did because he recognised the NSA's surveillance programs for what they are : dangerous, unconstitutional activity. This wholesale invasion of Americans' and foreign citizens' privacy does not contribute to our security ; it puts in danger the very liberties we are trying to protect.'' from :

Daniel Ellsberg - ''In my estimation, there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden's release of NSA material – and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago. Snowden's whistleblowing gives us the possibility to roll back a key part of what has amounted to an "executive coup" against the US constitution.'' Further Glenn Greenwald in chat with Amy Goodman :

e tenebris, lux ...

[-] 3 points by shadz66 (19985) 10 years ago

Damn that's a GR8 Link !!! I applaud you for it vigorously !! Well done ! Everyone here should explore :

Thanx very much - even IF you are the 'nameless' one but I think not, though I've been wrong before ;-)

fiat lux ..

[-] 3 points by frovikleka (2563) from Island Heights, NJ 10 years ago

"Restore the Fourth is a nonviolent grassroots movement protesting indiscriminate government surveilance and the erosion of the Fourth Amendment privacy rights."

And although it is "not formally affiliated with Occupy Wall Street," we are joining forces in demonstrating this coming 4th of July

This is a prime example of putting aside some of our differences for the greater good, and forming coalitions, alliances to protest a government that has gone out of control

And since this initiative is about Freedom, it transcends party affiliations

~Odin~

[-] 2 points by Builder (4202) 10 years ago

Another post. Not my words.

(quote) I no longer celebrate holidays like the 4th of July. It's not because I don't believe in the principles being celebrated: liberty, freedom, truth, justice. It's because our gov't no longer does and hasn't for a very long time. Our rights were nothing more than privileges that we allowed a corrupt govt to systematically take from us over time. It is our fault that this has happened.

We bought into their lies. Until fairly recently I had too. I went to war for what this country supposedly believed in. Yet as I have learned, most wars are based on the lies of old rich men who don't think twice about sending the young poor and disillusioned to fight for them. Very few of our wars have been about principles such as freedom or liberty, but more so about the principle of greed. Even World War II was nothing more than a way for American corporations in the military industrial complex to make a buck. Don't believe the lie that was Pearl Harbor - it could have been prevented.

I don't say the above lightly as my grandfather lost a leg at Normandy in WWII. My father served in war based on another lie- Vietnam. I too served in a war based upon another lie and greed - the First Gulf War. Our govt has sent millions off to fight their wars of deception and greed and sacrificed them like pawns on a chessboard. It has to end. I will always celebrate Memorial Day with utmost reverance for those pawns who had died and sacrificed at the hands of a govt who betrayed their trust, their beliefs.

It is easy to be lied to today even moreso than I ate up all their lies. We are distracted by Angry Birds and Candy Crush on our phones. Our phones which are thousands of times more powerful than the computers which put man into space. We watch the "news" which is owned by megacorporations and only report what they want us to see. The real news, such as revolutions go unreported. How much coverage has been on any mainstream news station about the revolutions in Brazil, Turkey, Bulgaria, Iceland and the sympathy protests all over the world? Not a drop in the bucket compared to the coverage of two celebrity fucktards giving birth to a kid ridicuously named after a compass direction.

We have eaten up all the bread and attended to all the circuses while Rome has been burning. Our rights, well privileges, have been stripped and eroded as sat by and idly watched. We vote like sheep hoping that change is right around the corner. Voting for the best personality or someone's wife instead of voting for the best ideas. But even if we voted for the best ideas, it wouldn't matter. Our leaders at the top echelon are nothing more than puppets for those behind the scenes that really run the world. The corporations and banks. And the men who run them.

We are no longer the United States but the United Corporations of Ameri$a. Our govt is locked in a steamy 69 with big business and neither of them give a fuck about us. They only want us to consume what they are selling until we are so far in debt, we can't buy a loaf of bread made out of genetically modified wheat. Every day we are bombarded with ads for shit we don't need. The govt agencies put in place to protect us from harmful products and business practices kiss the ass of big business while giving them a handjob. Our souls have been sold in the name of the holy dollar.

It is time. It is long past time for the people of this once proud country to rise. To take back what has been stolen and what we have given away in the name of security. Terrorists are out to get us we're told. No. You want terrorism? You need an enemy to worry about at night? Look at the corrupt pit of vipers in DC and their fellow snakes in big business. The same big business that allow our govt to launch massive programs to spy against us. They continue to tell us it's for our own good. We tremble in fear as they shows us their planted images on television.

Our founding fathers knew these days would come. They told us the warning signs of an oppressive govt. And, they told us what to do about it. Thomas Jefferson once said, "God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.... And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants." We are long long overdue.(unquote)

[-] 2 points by Builder (4202) 10 years ago

From a blog that I visit.

Not my words.

"Today we ostensibly celebrate the 237th anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence from the British Crown. On that day, our Founding Fathers put up their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honour in the proposition that the American colonies can and should govern themselves without interference by a greedy King and duplicitous Parliament in London and in a way that embraces the Enlightenment principles of life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness.

Today, we ostensibly celebrate those principles, which have served as inspirations for other nations and peoples around the world. Many of us have ancestors who emigrated from other nations who saw America as a veritable oasis that would allow them to be successful and provide a safe and stable place by which to raise a family.

My own great-grandparents came to this country one hundred years ago, fleeing the tyranny of the Habsburg Crown and the awful economic and social conditions of peasantry festering in Galicia (which compose parts of present-day Poland and the Ukraine). They did so even though the government of Austria-Hungary put stiff penalties and jail time for those advocating emigration to America. They did so because they wanted a better life for themselves and their posterity.

But we must also be sober and realise that we have fallen far from those lofty goals set by our Founding Fathers, and the dreams of our ancestors. I daresay that the actions of our government and the utter apathy and ignorance of the American people are a severe insult to these lofty ideals. People don't seem to care what goes on in government or in many cases even know rudimentary facts about how our civic system is to operate. Instead, we have people who seem to care more about what some depraved Hollywood starlet is doing instead of the pernicious villainy that goes on by our lawmakers.

Because of this, we as a people have effectively allowed the very officials we elect to our state and federal governments to be corrupted by special interests. Our government doesn't pay any attention to the citizens, but rather corporations like Monsanto and Goldman Sachs. Our representatives could care less about our natural and legal rights as people, passing heinous laws like the Patriot Act and other vile bills that favour specific wealthy individuals, corporations, and/or cartels because lobbyists and power brokers offer them cold, hard campaign cash in exchange for their acquiescence.

And despite the questions of "how do these nincompoops get into and stay in office?" the story continues because we have people who ultimately decide to cast their votes not based on what is right for the country or what their convictions suggest after weighing out all of the issues facing us as a people, but on petty things such as "who looks better" or "who will give me the most free stuff." Ultimately, both the people and the government officials forget that government isn't to be a master, but a dutiful factotum acting only on the prescriptions of the people.

As Jefferson put it so many years ago, governments derive their just powers by the consent of the governed. Thus, the problems in Congress and the rife corruption that result mean that We The People (yes, that means you and I) are ultimately to blame.

Our executive branch is hardly any better. For starters, the intelligence agencies that operate under its fold have been spying on the people and collecting information with neither the permission of the people nor a Constitutionally-valid warrant from a judge or magistrate in flagrant violation of our Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures. The White House claims authority to be able to imprison and/or kill people, including U.S. citizens, without one jota of judicial review in the name of "fighting terrorism."

I have serious doubts that this is what our Founding Fathers intended. Indeed I would say this kind of demagoguery and chicanery is the very stuff many of our ancestors explicitly wanted to get away from. And here we are, 4 July 2013, acting as if nothing is amiss. People are out there grilling, getting drunk on booze, and watching fireworks whilst chanting "'MURICA!!!" I see it on Facebook. Yet, despite all of the "patriotic" imagery and talks of freedom I have only seen two other people (both of whom are military veterans, no less) comment on how these freedoms that we talk about are being whittled down thread-by-thread at an alarming rate.

Nay, there is nothing good to celebrate today. Instead, we ought to take measure of what is being stripped away in our name and start demanding an end to the crooked system by which we currently have. Our citizens need to be inspired to educate themselves on the civic process and then actively engage in it. I realise this will enrage a lot of people, but dammit, it needs to be said."

[-] 2 points by Daffodil (2) 10 years ago

Ironic that you are protesting the actions of the NSA, yet organizing on Facebook and Twitter, NSA partnered sites which give the NSA and US government access to any requested data. Some of us don't have accounts on these sites because we do value our privacy and don't want a massive file of our data in the hands of big brother, and certainly don't want to open one in order to join a group that will certainly land us on a big brother watch list (FBI targeted people from OWS movement). You might want to think about organizing on sites that protect the privacy of their users: http://prism-break.org/

[-] 3 points by windyacres (1197) 10 years ago

There's nowhere to hide. They will have massive files on those of us that are part of OWS or on facebook, but they will look suspiciously at those who have small files and attempt to stay under the radar like you.

[-] 1 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 10 years ago

Solidarity!

[-] 1 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 10 years ago

There is an assumption that privacy is necessary for national security

A government of the people can not govern what is kept secret from it

[-] 1 points by vArouet (2) from New York, NY 10 years ago

Anyone planning to attend, could you join this Facebook event to give us a better estimate of the amount of people intending to come?

See: https://www.facebook.com/events/127075687500033/

Cheers.

[-] 2 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 10 years ago

already have a face thanks

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[-] 0 points by HCabret (-327) 10 years ago

Why do I need to attend an "organizational meeting" in order to preserve my natural right to privacy?

It seems to me that I have privacy whether anyone wants me to or not.

My suggestion to Restore the Fourth: Boycott the internet, Boycott the phone companies, Boycott the Tv companies, Boycott the video games companies, Boycott Google and Apple and Verizon.

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 10 years ago

Privacy rights although not explicitly mentioned in our Constitution were what the constitutional amendments were building towards to protect against the ABUSIVE POWERS of the State. There is NO reason whatsoever that they should ever be suspended because of the usage of new mediums or media. Any attempt to rescind such rights is betraying the intents of our founding principles and tantamount to Treason.

Restoring the Fourth Amendment can be a great start but our Constitution has already been assaulted in many ways so we must set our sights higher -- restoring ALL of the other rights that were eroded, stolen, or usurped. Other countries learned to value privacy after extremely bitter real-world experiences. Our Founding Fathers did, too. Have we as the American people forgotten what that struggle and this experiment are about?

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[-] -1 points by TheRoot (305) from New York, NY 10 years ago

Admiration and respect to the whistle-blowers. Liberty still has meaning for them. Shame on the Sargent Schultz's still working at the NSA. They work and collect their pay from their imperialist bosses. These rank and file in the NSA know they are part of massive surveillance on every citizen in the US and innocent citizens across the world. But they justify their pay by uniformly pretending that they are fighting terrorists.

Bill Binney (and many like them), said, "the forces of evil are too numerous" at the NSA. So, he left the NSA. Edward Snowden was of the same mind.

I am saying it in the broadest way that I know how to say it. I thank you Mr. Snowden, Mr. Binney and each and everyone like you for putting freedom above slavery.