BERNing down the NSA.

[Matthew X]

http://www.charm.net/~marc/chronicle/nsa_jul02.shtml
The Baltimore Emergency Response Network (BERN), a group that seeks to halt 
U.S. military intervention in other sovereign nations and promotes peaceful 
solutions to conflict, will gather this Fourth of July, as it done since 
1996, for its annual In[ter]dependence Day demonstration at the 
38,000-employee National Security Agency. At 10 a.m. at 9800 Savage Road in 
Fort Meade, BERN members will demonstrate for an end to the NSA's secret 
and overt operations that they charge lead to killing, destruction and 
domination. They plan to deploy "Star Wars" balloons as examples of what 
they believe would be a more cost-effective form of missile defense than 
the "star wars" National Missile Defense program now underway.
"Justice is the only means of security," said BERN member Max Obuszewski in 
a prepared statement to the press. "It is an ethical imperative that money 
wasted on spying and warmaking be diverted to satisfy the basic needs of 
all people of the world. We are interdependent as one human family."
Four BERN members--Ellen Barfield, Max Obuszewski, Sister Carol Gilbert, 
O.P. and Sister Ardeth Platte, O.P--were arrested in October 2001 at the 
time of another BERN protest at the NSA. They were charged with trespass, 
destruction of government property and conspiracy. These charges were 
dropped in April 2002, but they were warned by a prosecutor at Fort Meade 
that new charges would be filed. "The defendants welcome an opportunity to 
challenge the National Security Agency in court," said Obuszewski. The four 
intend to take part in the July 4 protest.
BERN activists have been seeking to meet with the NSA's director to discuss 
the agency's involvement with Star Wars, Echelon (which intercepts 
communications worldwide), and the Space Command Vision for 2020, which 
calls for domination of the heavens.