California threatening to cut off water to the NSA | Emergency Preparedness

California threatening to cut off water to the NSA

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28 Jun ’14 - 9:03 pm

well this could be interesting

The plan to cut off the National Security Administration's water supply is trickling ever closer to becoming a reality in California, where it was just passed out of the state assembly's Public Safety Committee. It's a nice little jab at the goverment snoops, but can the bill actually do anything?

We first saw the OffNow campaign's legislation back in February, when its leader, Michael Boldin, convinced eight Maryland Republicans to sponsor a similar measure. The bill proposed cutting water and electric support to any federal government agency that conducts unwarranted surveillance. It didn't go anywhere in Maryland, where the NSA is headquarted, but it did pass California's Senate, and now it seems like it'll face a vote in the full assembly.

At the moment, California doesn't have any NSA data collection centers, so it seems to be a preemptive or symbolic measure at best.

Shane Trejo, an OffNow spokesperson, said as much in a press release earlier this year: "It’s not unlikely that [the NSA is] planning to build new data centers and ‘threat operations centers’ in other locations," he said. "California’s high-tech industry makes it a likely candidate. We can’t wait until the NSA opens up shop. This act yanks away the welcome mat and tells the NSA, ‘We don’t want you in California unless you follow the Constitution.’”

So, yeah—mostly a symbolic gesture. But a few provisions in the bill would seem to have some teeth: Most notably, it would make it illegal for data obtained illegally by the NSA without a warrant to be used in state or local criminal investigations. Additionally, its backers say that passage would require six California public universities to end their NSA "Center of Academic Excellence" programs, which feeds the NSA with new talent.

State Sen. Ted Leiu, who introduced the bill, told Government and Technology that he believes there aren't any rules that suggest a state can't cut off services to the federal government.

"There is no provision in the U.S. Constitution that says states have to cooperate with federal agencies absent a specific congressional law," he said. "There's nothing out there that says we in California have to cooperate with immigration officials at the federal level, or in this case, with the NSA."

But is that true? The Federal Reserved Water Rights act allows the federal government unqualified access to resources for Native American reservations, National Parks, and military bases. It's unclear whether an NSA office—as an office of the Department of Defense—would qualify as a military base.

In any case, it's appearing increasingly likely that we'll see what happens when a state votes to withhold resources directly from the federal government. The measure flew through California's senate and appears to have a lot of support in its assembly. It still seems like a stunt, but it might be one that the two sides will have to litigate in court.

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/can-a-state-withhold-water-from-the-nsa-california-is-about-to-find-out

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30 Jun ’14 - 8:24 pm

Interesting.

Be RADICAL Grow Food

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22 Nov ’14 - 9:21 am

looks like Utah might

Lawmakers are considering a bill that would shut off the water spigot to the massive data center operated by the National Security Agency in Bluffdale, Utah.

The legislation, proposed by Utah lawmaker Marc Roberts, is due to go to the floor of the Utah House of Representatives early next year, but it was debated in a Public Utilities and Technology Interim Committee meeting on Wednesday. The bill, H.B. 161, directs municipalities like Bluffdale to “refuse support to any federal agency which collects electronic data within this state.”

The NSA brought its Bluffdale data center online about a year ago, taking advantage Utah’s cheap power and a cut-rate deal for millions of gallons of local water, used to cool the 1-million-square-foot building’s servers. Roberts’ bill, however, would prohibit the NSA from negotiating new water deals when its current Bluffdale agreement runs out in 2021.

The law seems like a long-shot to clear legislative hurdles when Utah’s legislature re-convenes next year, but Wednesday’s committee hearing was remarkable, nonetheless, says Nate Carlisle, a reporter with the Salt Lake Tribune who haswaged a fight with the NSA and Bluffdale officials to determine how much water the data center is actually using. “What’s noteworthy is no one on the panel said: ‘Hey, wait a minute, we can’t do this,'” he says. “They had some specific concerns about the language of the bill, but there was no outright opposition.”

Utah lawmakers on the committee could have voted to give the bill an “unfavorable” review on the spot, essentially dooming it on the floor, but they didn’t do that.

Instead, they simply listened to testimony on the NSA and Bluffdale’s support of the center. “I just don’t want to subsidize what they’re doing on the back of our citizens,” Carlisle quotes Republican Representative Roger Barrus as saying during the meeting.

Utah has a long history of disputes with the federal government, but this is the first time Carlisle remembers anyone proposing to cut off water to a federal agency. “I think it’s representative of an attitude change in Utah that the bill is even being discussed,” he says.

http://www.wired.com.....=social_fb