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Pro-Privacy Protesters Adopted the Highway to the NSA's Data Center

The group has to pick up trash along the street, but it'll do it with picket signs in tow.
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This is what democracy looks like. The privacy activist group Restore the Fourth, which has been protesting the US government's Orwellian surveillance, has had no luck taking their complaints to the heart of the snooping operation: the NSA's massive new data center in Utah. Until now.

The group's come up with a brilliant workaround to get access to the closely guarded spy center: The activists just "adopted" a two-mile stretch of Route 68 that runs right by the data center's front door.

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A representative of Restore The Fourth's Utah branch, Lorina Potter, signed an agreement with the Utah Department of Transportation on Tuesday, the Salt Lake Tribune reported. Once the paperwork is all settled, the group will essentially own that stretch for the foreseeable future, under the state-sponsored "Adopt a Highway" program.

As part of the deal, the state Department of Transportation will install "Restore the Fourth" signs on both sides of the adopted stretch of road—an ever-present protest sign right outside the data center and pretty brilliant way to get visibility for the group's message.

For its end of the deal, the activists have to pick up litter along the street at least three times a year. Naturally, they're going to bring picket signs with them when they do it.

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"This data center has eroded and invaded every part of our 4th Amendment rights," Potter told the press. The 4th Amendment is of course what the organization's name is in reference to. The group believes the NSA's domestic surveillance violates Americans' constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.

And the NSA's response to all this? A spokesperson told the Tribune, "Highway adoptions are not a part of NSA’s federal mission."

The new data center, located in Bluffdale, a suburb of Salt Lake City, has been concealed in a cloud of secrecy since the start of construction. The agency really doesn't want anyone prodding around its cyber-spy operation—recently, a cameraman filmed a confrontation in the center's parking lot between guards and a couple of journalists who were trying to get a look at the infamous building.

Potter told the Associated Press that the guards "have been very unkind to anyone who tries to come close." This summer, activists were forced out of an empty lot next to the data center. They were protesting as part of a nationwide rally held on the Fourth of July, organized by Restore the Fourth.

Meanwhile, the billion-dollar data center has been rendered all but useless for the moment—because it's melting. The building was supposed to open for business this month, but has been delayed by a series of electrical failures that are blowing circuits and melting the metal machinery. Evidently the government fast-tracked the construction at the expense of some quality control.