{"id":20597,"date":"2013-07-04T11:48:12","date_gmt":"2013-07-04T19:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=20597"},"modified":"2013-07-04T11:48:12","modified_gmt":"2013-07-04T19:48:12","slug":"july-4th-anti-nsa-rally-in-dc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2013\/07\/04\/july-4th-anti-nsa-rally-in-dc\/","title":{"rendered":"July 4th Anti-NSA Rally in DC"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"167July<\/a><\/p>\n

Thomas Drake after his speech<\/p>\n

The Restore the Fourth <\/a>organization had a rally at McPherson Square in downtown DC on this July 4th afternoon. \u00a0 They had several excellent speakers – including Libertarian Party’s Carla Howell, CEI’s Ryan Radia, Cato’s Julian Sanchez, and Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin. \u00a0(Other rallies are occurring across the nation.)<\/p>\n

The headliner was former National Security Agency executive Thomas Drake<\/strong><\/a>, who risked his freedom to expose NSA crimes. \u00a0Drake would not cringe to the feds and he and his lawyers whipped the Justice Department in federal court last year. \u00a0 I am sure his courage and his victory helped encourage other whistleblowers.<\/p>\n

It was neat to see an American hero like Drake speak on the Fourth of July. \u00a0 He challenged the audience: “The government has given up on the Constitution. \u00a0Have you?” \u00a0 He denounced the feds for claiming a ” license to seize first and search later.” \u00a0He warned that “the acid of government secrecy is eating out the heart of who we are as a people.” \u00a0He noted that “national security has become the state religion.”<\/p>\n

I assume his speech will be posted on YouTube. \u00a0 It is definitely worth watching – \u00a0especially at a time when other NSA crimes are coming to light.<\/p>\n

Here’s some photos I took today:<\/p>\n

\"017July<\/a> \"060July<\/a><\/p>\n

\"095July<\/a><\/p>\n

This guy started shouting about the upside down U.S. flag next to the speaker’s podium He said that to display it like that turned the flag into “a symbol of treason and anarchy.”<\/p>\n

\"117July<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"135July<\/a><\/p>\n

\"153July<\/a><\/p>\n

\"123July<\/p>\n

Thomas Drake and Code Pink mastermind Medea Benjamin.<\/p>\n

\"140July<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thomas Drake after his speech The Restore the Fourth organization had a rally at McPherson Square in downtown DC on this July 4th afternoon. \u00a0 They had several excellent speakers – including Libertarian Party’s Carla Howell, CEI’s Ryan Radia, Cato’s Julian Sanchez, and Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin. \u00a0(Other rallies are occurring across the nation.) The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-20597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20597"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20600,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20597\/revisions\/20600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20597"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=20597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}