Libertarians Are Trying to Co-Opt an Anti-NSA Rally for Their Own Agenda

http://www.alternet.org/activism/libertarians-coopting-nsa-rally

On Saturday, a coalition of critics of the U.S. surveillance establishment will gather in Washington D.C., under the banner Stop Watching Us for a rally asking Congress to “stop the NSA’s unconstitutional mass surveillance.” Participants will gather in front of Union Station and march to the reflecting pool in front of the Capitol.

Some of the biggest names in civil liberties and digital freedom of information will be there, including the ACLU, Electronic Frontier Foundation, FreePress and FreedomWorks. Sponsoring individuals include a great number people I admire (and in some cases, know very well), including Tim Berners-Lee, Daniel Ellsberg, Xeni Jardin, Eli Pariser, Anil Dash, Dan Gillmor, Rebecca Mackinnon, Glenn Greenwald, John Cusack, Molly Crabapple, Birgitta Jónsdóttir, and Andrew Rasiej. Companies backing the effort include Reddit and Ben & Jerry’s.

“We demand the U.S. Congress reveal the full extent of the NSA’s spying programs,” is the basic demand of Stop Watching Us.

This is a vital cause, and I agree with it.

Yet I cannot support this coalition or the rally. It is fatally compromised by the prominent leadership and participation of the Libertarian Party and other libertarian student groups; their hard-core ideology stands in direct opposition to almost everything I believe in as a social democrat.