How does a guy that makes excuses to spy on us all and lies to Congress deserve any courtesy?
The best it can do is surprise him for a millisecond, then let him write you off as an "unserious" person to be briefly patronized and then devoutly ignored (or worse, add you to a list of "interesting" persons).
If Joseph Welch had been "polite" to Joe McCarthy instead of talking to him like the opportunist that he was, McCarthy would have stayed in business.
"Until this moment, Senator, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness...Little did I dream you could be so reckless and so cruel as to do an injury to that lad...It is, I regret to say, equally true that I fear he shall always bear a scar needlessly inflicted by you. If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty I would do so. I like to think I am a gentle man but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me."
When McCarthy tried to renew his attack, Welch interrupted him:
"Senator, may we not drop this? We know he belonged to the Lawyers Guild. Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
McCarthy tried to ask Welch another question about Fisher, and Welch cut him off:
"Mr. McCarthy, I will not discuss this further with you. You have sat within six feet of me and could have asked me about Fred Fisher. You have seen fit to bring it out. And if there is a God in Heaven it will do neither you nor your cause any good. I will not discuss it further. I will not ask Mr. Cohn any more questions. You, Mr. Chairman, may, if you will, call the next witness."
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_N._Welch#Army.E2.80.93Mc...
But that's a far cry from yelling "bullshit" at the back of a conference room.
What they're doing is bullshit and they should be reminded of it every second of every day by anyone that can tell them.
Why would you think that was the desired outcome? If I'd been the one heckling him, I can guarantee you my thinking would not have been anything along the lines of "I want this guy to listen to what I have to say, consider it carefully, and then decide something". Why? Because I'm pretty close to 100% sure that Keith Alexander doesn't give a flying fuck what I think about anything, and never will no matter what I say. Hey, in an ideal world, I'd be wrong, and I hope I am. But I wouldn't bet a plug nickel on it.
No, if I'd been there and been heckling him, it would have been solely in the hopes of invoking the "someone must go first" aspect of crowd psychology, and hoping to see him booed off of the stage... because I think having that happen, and having it reported that that happened, would send a powerful message to everybody involved... Alexander, members of Congress, the public at large, and other hackers.
then let him write you off as an "unserious" person to be briefly patronized
I don't see any reason to think that that isn't his opinion of everyone in the crowd from the moment he walked in. Remember, to these NSA guys, people like us are "the enemy". When he stands on a stage and looks out at a crowd, he isn't seeing law-abiding, honest, hard-working American citizens worthy of their Constitutionally guaranteed rights - he's seeing a room full of "potential terrorists".
Also, the organisers invited him because they thought you might want to hear what he has to say, so you do it out of respect for them.
Playing nicey-nice with people that have little to no conscience doesn't work as a method of political change.
Politicians are already one of the most reviled groups around, and that doesn't discourage them.
Stage effective, organised opposition that will actually threaten their plushy careers, then they'll listen.
Politeness is reserved for society, not for antisocial personalities.