At least one protest group heralded Monday's change in venue for the upcoming G8 summit as a major victory, but they said the change means nothing for their plans.
"It's a major victory for those of us who are planning these protests," said Joe Iosbaker with the United National Antiwar Committee in Chicago. "The administration is taking G8 someplace where they won't have to face the people who suffer under their policies."
The White House on Monday announced that it had scuttled plans to hold the upcoming G8 economic summit in Chicago, and would instead host world leaders at the presidential retreat at Camp David in Maryland. Chicago will still host the NATO summit on May 20-21.
Iosbaker said the summit was moved because it had become a major source of controversy, adding that the protests will go on during the NATO summit "because the agendas are the same: war and poverty."
Six G8 countries are also a part of NATO, and anti-war activist Andy Thayer said protesters have even bigger grievances against NATO.
"We basically see NATO as the military arm of the G8," he said. "We live in a country that spends as much on its military as the rest of the planet combined, that what they can't accomplish with their unfair economic arrangemments they do with military conquests, and we've seen that over and over again."
And members of the Occupy movement said they'll be out in force to protest the influence of big business on government.
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"#NATO will still be here. And so will we. We are Occupy. We are the people. #ExpectUs," members of the Occupy movement posted to Twitter.
Leaders from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, as well as the European Union, are expected to attend this year's gathering.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
