This Thursday, April 10th, marks another important day of nationally coordinated actions to protest local fusion centers.
Who, Where, What: National Overview
This week’s Thursday action was organized by privacy groups across the country, encompassing actions not just in D.C. but also in Charlotte, Dallas, Los Angeles, Oakland and San Francisco, as well as possible actions in Montana, Ohio, Florida and elsewhere. View the nationwide action plan here.
All protests will occur simultaneously: e.g., starting at 11 a.m. on the West Coast, and at 2 p.m. in D.C. Sponsors include the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, DefendTheFourth/RestoreTheFourth, the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, the Oakland Privacy Working Group, Digital Fourth, and others.
Why:
Fusion centers were allegedly designed to help law enforcement apprehend criminals and “terrorists.” They received huge amounts of funding from DHS, and even more $ from local and state governments; but, finding little criminal or terrorist activity, they’ve devoted most of their resources to monitoring such groups as Veterans For Peace, Codepink, and Occupy–as well as ordinary citizens.
Fusion centers also facilitate cross-fertilization among many USG agencies not known for their sensitivity to the 1st and 4th Amendments: local and state police; FBI terrorist specialists; the CIA; DHS; ICE; the NSA… not exactly the front line in the fight for privacy rights.
National Goals and Demands for April 10th
The point of these national protests is to rally and inform the people (“we, the people”) against spy centers, and to speak out against warrantless, unconstitutional surveillance.
The demands of all involved pro-privacy efforts are as follows:
1) Each center must release all secret files and Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs).
2) State governments, which provide most of the dough, must defund the fusion centers.
3) Each state must also shut down its fusion center/s, as inherently abusive of civil liberties.
Please spread the word to your friends in cities with or without fusion centers. (In areas without spy centers, people can flier phone companies with “cease-and-desist” orders; identify companies that help manufacture or supply surveillance gear, protest there, and so on.)
For more info visit Shut Down Spy Centers and go here to learn from the Electronic Frontier Foundation about Why Fusion Centers Matter.
3 WAYS TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT
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