◼ Bipartisan duo wants to cut NSA's utilities, ban research at state schools and impose sanctions on contractors - US News & World Report
A bipartisan team of California state senators introduced legislation Monday that would prohibit the state and its localities from providing "material support" to the National Security Agency.
If the bill becomes law, it would deny NSA facilities access to water and electricity from public utilities, impose sanctions on companies trying to fill the resulting void and outlaw NSA research partnerships with state universities.
Companies with state contracts also would be banned from working with the NSA.
"I agree with the NSA that the world is a dangerous place," state Sen. Ted Lieu, the bill's Democratic co-author, said in a statement. "That is why our founders enacted the Bill of Rights. They understood the grave dangers of an out-of-control federal government."
Lieu said the NSA's surveillance programs pose "a clear and present danger to our liberties."
"The last time the federal government massively violated the U.S. Constitution," he said, "over 100,000 innocent Americans were rounded up and interned."
...The California bill would specifically ban the state and its political subdivisions from "[p]roviding material support, participation or assistance in any form to a federal agency that claims the power, by virtue of any federal law, rule, regulation or order, to collect electronic data or metadata of any person pursuant to any action not based on a warrant that particularly describes the person, place and thing to be searched or seized."
◼ STATES TO NSA: GET A WARRANT - Bob Unruh/World Net Daily
...The newly revealed practices of the NSA to monitor all telephone calls made by American citizens could even be found in violation of the Missouri state constitution.
According to the Tenth Amendment Center, lawmakers in Missouri are proposing to amend their state constitution. Their plan would add “and electronic communications and data” to the provision that provides privacy and security for residents.
If changed by voters, it would read: “That the people shall be secure in their persons, papers, homes [and], effects, and electronic communications and data, from unreasonable searches and seizures; and no warrant to search any place, or seize any person or thing, or access electronic data or communication, shall issue without describing the place to be searched, or the person or thing to be seized, or the data or communication to be accessed, as nearly as may be; nor without probable cause, supported by written oath or affirmation.”
The Joint Resolution, pending before the state Senate, proposes allowing Missouri voters to decide next November whether or not to amend their constitution....
The Tenth Amendment Center noted Arizona state Sen. Kelli Ward announced recently she was introducing an even broader bill to deny material support to the NSA in the Grand Canyon State.
That effort fits into a campaign by Offnow.org, which encourages states to not allow the physical services that the NSA needs to operate.
For example, regarding a new NSA facility in Utah, the campaign notes the new data center, “a massive spy complex, requires 1.7 million gallons over water every single day to operate.”
“Those massive supercomputers monitoring your personal information are water-cooled. They can’t function without the resources to keep them at operating temperature. That water is scheduled to be provided by the Jordan Valley River Conservancy District, ‘a political subdivision of the state of Utah.’
“Because of this, a state law can be passed banning this partnership. In short, they can turn the water off,” the group said.
The Tenth Amendment Center said other states have related moves in under way.
