However, Congressman Cicilline, whatever brand of patriotism has motivated you to oppose the NSA and its spying, for that patriotism you have my own honor in accord. I am with you.

I am quite unsure whether or not the rest of our delegation will do what you have bravely done: co-sponsor and support the USA Freedom Act in order to limit, and hopefully soon end, these flagrant abuses of power by the NSA and other surveillance programs.

For you, sir:

I will never forget, and will forever cherish, the day I witnessed our Congress, your Congress Mr. Cicilline, an edifice I had long given up on, rise up and strike against a beast that grew in darkness. You, our public servants so often estranged, had a special fire in you. I saw, perhaps for the first time in my adult memory, an unlikely coalition of fearful friends struggle to defend the dignity of their people. This was no fool’s errand; it spoke to the heart of what we need from you now. More than ever we need it, from all your fellows!

We may have missed by twelve votes then, but not this time. We have a better bill, and a more focused will to fight.

Remarkably I find myself with a renewed faith that, in the ever-darkening halls of public office, there may remain enough principled people to make these, the toughest of decisions: those that may cost us the cheap domain of comfort, and they, their own seats of power, all to alleviate the real suffering of another.

I am with you, sir, as nothing secures our common dignity but our willingness to be vulnerable. Together! May those who feel otherwise be banished to the safety of their small hearts and soulless thrones. We all suffer for our inaction, so thus let us bear the burden together, at once, and abolish these programs of suspicion, torture, and murder!

For the reader: please consider reaching out to our other delegates in Congress, Senators Reed and Whitehouse, and Representative Langevin, and to all who will listen. Implore them to fight back against this regime of unwarranted spying and data collection that threatens our privacy and self-respect as a society. Support the USA Freedom Act! Follow this issue and those most difficult to come. Dearest reader, we cannot afford to do otherwise, and so much more remains for us to bear.

In earnest, for his protection of our common liberty, let us thank Congressman Cicilline for his service.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014 has become “the day we fight back against mass surveillance” and in Providence a rally against NSA spying was held outside the Federal Building next to Kennedy Plaza downtown. Five minutes after protesters representing MoveOn.org and the Rhode Island Coalition to defend Human and Civil Rights (RICHCR) unfurled a large banner that said, “Dear U.S. Government, STOP SPYING ON US!!” a white Homeland Security vehicle pulled up and a representative of that agency kept a watchful eye, even going so far as to leave his vehicle and physically patrol the protest. It wasn’t long before members of the U.S. Marshall Service and the Providence Police arrived as back up.

One might wonder why members of three law enforcement agencies were required to keep the sidewalks clear for pedestrians and to keep the protesters from using the stairs when giving speeches. One may further wonder why a small crowd of peaceful demonstrators, standing up for their constitutional rights, should be prohibited from using the stairs of a public building for short speeches to a small crowd.

As Greg Gerritt said during his short talk, “Clearly the Department of Homeland InSecurity and the Providence Police have nothing better to do than to watch a bunch of gray haired people hold signs in front of the federal building.”

Speaking at the event were Chris Curry of MoveOn.org, Randall Rose of RICHCR, RI Future columnist Greg Gerritt, Robert Scott Perry of Portsmouth and others. It was as the last speech ended that the officer from Homeland Security informed the organizers that the protest was over and that it was time to leave. According to Randall Rose, who pointed out that the protest was taking place on public property, “[The Homeland Security officer] said that the sidewalk was federal property and ordered us again to stop protesting and leave.  He said that we’d already had our protest.”

It is the height of irony and government hubris that a government official, charged with protecting the Constitution, should approach a group of citizens agitating for Constitutional protections and decide for them the limits of their rights pertaining to free speech and free assembly.

The presence of so many officers (from at least three different agencies) was meant to intimidate free citizens and to curtail protest.

Segal, a former RI state rep who ran for Congress in 2010, and Swartz together created Demand Progress, a progressive organization that fights for net neutrality and against domestic internet spying by the US government.

Today that organization is leading some of the biggest names on the web in a national day of action to draw attention to the NSA proactively searching everyone’s computer for evidence of wrongdoing. Occupy Providence helped organize the action at Kennedy Plaza at 1pm today.

“Today the greatest threat to a free Internet, and broader free society, is the National Security Agency’s mass spying regime,” Segal said in a press release. “If Aaron were alive he’d be on the front lines, fighting back against these practices that undermine our ability to engage with each other as genuinely free human beings.”

Demand Progress is joined by the ACLU, Upworthy, the Progressive Democrats of America, Reddit, Tumblr, Mozilla, Greenpeace and Amnesty International in sponsoring this day of action. And the National Journal reports that Google, Facebook, Twitter, AOL and Microsoft also joined the cause Monday.

According to National Journal:

“organizers are promising that banners will be prominently displayed on websites across the Internet urging users to engage in viral activity expressing their opposition to the NSA. Additionally, those banners will ask readers to flood the telephone lines and email in-boxes of congressional offices to voice their support of the Freedom Act, a bill in Congress that aims to restrict the government’s surveillance authority. It remains unclear to what extent Facebook, Google, and the others will participate, or whether they will host such banners on their individual sites [Ed note: no doodle today].

And if you don’t yet understand why you should care about the mass surveillance sweeps the NSA is doing to every American, watch this video: