A Blimp Flew Over the NSA in the Name of Surveillance Reform

One way to announce a new campaign against NSA surveillance, I suppose, is to fly a gigantic blimp over the NSA's most important data center. That's exactly what the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Greenpeace did this morning, turning the tables on government mass surveillance.

Parker Higgins, an EFF activist, hopped in a Greenpeace-owned blimp and flew it over NSA's sprawling, million square-foot, $1.5 billion Utah Data Center. He and some Greenpeace activists flew for about an hour, according to David Pomerantz of Greenpeace.

"We flew for just over an hour, which is what we had scheduled, and landed as planned," Pomerantz told me in an email. "We haven't heard anything from any government agencies to my knowledge."

As I heard about the stunt, I was on the phone with the Center for Democracy and Technology's Greg Nojeim, a lawyer who works on NSA surveillance issues. He hadn't heard about the stunt beforehand, but asked me, "Is it armed? That's very interesting."

Here's what it looks like:

The evil lima bean where NSA hoards humanity's secrets. Just shot this from an airship above. pic.twitter.com/lUYowISAE2

— Parker Higgins (@xor) June 27, 2014

And here's Parker and a Greenpeace pilot taking a selfie.

Taking a selfie with @GreenpeaceUSA above the NSA data center in Utah was definitely necessary. More pics soon! pic.twitter.com/A1Q9ZgjAve

— EFF (@EFF) June 27, 2014

Dirigibles for digital rights! We're flying over the Utah data center to announce our new campaign grading Congress on surveillance reform.

— EFF (@EFF) June 27, 2014

According to EFF, the group is launching a new campaign to grade Congress on its NSA surveillance reform thus far. We're guessing it's not going to fare well, especially considering that the USA Freedom Act, the reform bill the House of Representatives just passed, got completely gutted.