At Wednesday's hearing, Litt was asked by Bob Goodlatte, the chairman of the House judiciary committee, if the administration thought if a surveillance program "of this magnitude … could be indefinitely kept secret from the American people?"
"We welcome a discussion about the balance of security and liberty, we just don't care what you say and won't take any of your input. But discussion sure is great. Yay for democracy"
Indeed. It is somewhat of a faux-vote. You are given the impression that you 'vote' counts. It doesn't really. I'd never thought about it that way before.
It's a manipulative way to discourage action. Oh, I can just sign a petition and everything will be cool? Sounds good, no need to call my representatives or take further action.
Honestly - anything that makes elective representatives experience it. Best would probably be showing up at town hall meetings and asking smart questions. But even a two line email "I disagree with your stand on x. Please reconsider your position on x" is in my opinion making a much higher impact than any of these petitions.
One effective strategy that was used in Finland was buying huge posters of the politician in question and placing them in key areas where said politician had a lot of voters.[1]
The socialist minister tried to impose new copyright-related taxes. The poster says "Exploitation of the workers! Arhinmäki wants the buyers of computers and phones to pay a blank media tax". A few days later he succumbed to pressure.
I'm going to try to attend my congresswoman's town hall next Thursday to ask questions about NSA surveillance. What "Smart" questions would you recommend that I ask?
Paper letters force staffers to use time on them. Pissed off staffers makes hell for the officials. The more letters, the better. It's like a DDoS, but legal.
Whether or not the court order is renewed will be secret, won't it? Isn't the whole point to make all the agency regulations secret? I mean, the original court order wasn't public, why would the renewal be?
"Well," Litt replied, "we tried.