pana Loc: are we there yet?

The NSA data centre in Bluffdale, Utah, will require 1.7m gallons of water daily, activists estimate. Photograph: Rick Bowmer/AP


The National Security Agency, already under siege in Washington, faces a fresh attempt to curtail its activities from a Utah legislator who wants to cut off the surveillance agency’s water supply.

Marc Roberts, a first-term Republican lawmaker in the Beehive State, plans this week to begin a quixotic quest to check government surveillance starting at a local level. He will introduce a bill that would prevent anyone from supplying water to the $1bn-plus data center the NSA is constructing in his state at Bluffdale.

The bill is about telling the federal government “if you want to spy on the whole world and American citizens, great, but we’re not going to help you,” Roberts told the Guardian.

Supporters of the bill freely admit they’re at a disadvantage. Roberts is still talking with colleagues to find co-sponsors. His activist allies expect a steep, uphill struggle against the NSA’s supporters in conservative Utah, as well as business groups whom Roberts expects will argue that the data center will create jobs and bolster the local economy.

It will be a “pretty good fight”, said Mike Maharrey of the Tenth Amendment Center, whose campaign to shut off the spigot at the data center had gained more media attention in recent weeks than traction until Roberts embraced it.

The impending bill also highlights a diffusion of protest against the NSA more than eight months after whistleblower Edward Snowden began revealing the breadth of US and allied surveillance in the Guardian, the Washington Post and other news outlets.

In addition to a congressional effort to end bulk collection and promised curtailments unilaterally offered by President Barack Obama, Utah is the 13th state legislature to consider sanctions on the federal government’s second largest spy agency. The hashtag favored by local activists: #NullifyNSA.

“Ultimately, all three branches of the federal government have grown complicit in a broad-scale assault on the fundamental rights of we, the American people, and the only place we have left to go are the states,” said Shahid Buttar, the executive director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, an activist group working with the Tenth Amendment Center as part of what they call the OffNow coalition.

The logic of the Utah campaign is straightforward. Running the data center requires a lot of water – some 1.7m gallons daily, the activists estimate – to cool the anticipated 100,000 square feet of powerful computers and support equipment the NSA needs for storing a tremendous amount of data. The Wall Street Journal estimated this to be in the range of exabytes or even zettabytes (an exabyte is a billion gigabytes.)

Making it illegal to supply the water will cripple the data center, already beset with electrical problems, before it opens and complicate the NSA’s plans for expanding its storage capacity. For an agency that hoovers up a wide swath of the data communicated across the internet, not to mention the phone records of Americans that it can store for up to five years, it’s a problem.

But Utah is only the latest of about a dozen states to consider measures designed to restrict the NSA’s activities.

In the NSA’s home state of Maryland, eight lawmakers are backing a bill to stymie the provision of water and electricity to the agency’s Fort Meade headquarters. A similar measure, based off an initiative Maherrey’s organization calls the 4th Amendment Protection Act, has been introduced in California, Arizona, Oklahoma, Indiana, Mississippi, Washington state and Vermont.

“The provision of resources like water and electricity is a no-brainer in a state’s plenary authority,” said Buttar.

Four other states – Kansas, New Hampshire, Alaska and Missouri – are considering a related measure to prevent the sharing of NSA-derived data without a warrant.

The campaign faces unfavorable odds. The 4th Amendment Protection Act in Mississippi was referred to the state senate rules committee on 20 January, where it died on 4 February.

“I know it’s not going to pass in every state,” Maharrey said. But in Utah particularly, “we’re going to push it as hard as we can.”

Roberts, a former basketball player at Utah’s Brigham Young University, is a logical choice to push hard. His website prominently quotes Frederic Bastiat’s “The Law” (“… it was the fact that life, liberty and property existed beforehand that caused man to make laws in the first place”) cites the Tenth Amendment’s emphasis on the “few and defined powers” available to the federal government. Roberts recently introduced a bill restricting law enforcement’s leeway to forcibly enter Utahns’ homes when conducting searches.

“It goes back to federalism [and] the Tenth Amendment principle,” Roberts said.

“When the federal government gets too big and gets out of control, the states have to step up, and that’s what we’re doing now: join[ing] together to push back,” he said.

Retired669

Are you really stupid enough to believe any of these states and their idiot politicians are going to cut the water or electricity to our federal governments buildings by making up worthless bullshit filled laws?

If you or anyone else thinks this will happen you truly are morons. The federal government will crush those piss ants without breaking a sweat. :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

pana Loc: are we there yet?

Retired669 Shhhhhhh, someone will be along shortly to feed you your government provided oatmeal. Till then best you crawl under a sturdy desk with a pair of scissors and piss yourself as you have been instructed. Cowards like you would only get in the way of brave people who are willing to fight for your rights for you. Shhhh, you rest now sweetie.

Retired669

Post some more of your worthless tea bagging shit since that's all you ever post! Do you really think those idiot politicians are going to shut the water and power off? Try answering the question instead of doing the crawfish shuffle.:thumbup:

pana Loc: are we there yet?

I posted the article for information. If you want me to explain them to you then as a true capitalist I will have to insist on compensation. Would you like my Paypal account info so you can pay me to educate you?

MrEd Loc: Georgia

You can't educate retarded 669, he is just to stupid to understand anything simple. Anything you post that he disagrees with automatically makes you a Tea Bagger. He doesn't understand the simple art of conversation and passing on of ideas. Any time the conversation goes in a direction he does not like, he looses all self respect and starts foaming at the mouth. I think it is past time for his shots..............

jay-are

Are you actually standing up and telling the world that you favor the federal government exercising total authoritarian power to crush any American citizens who object to such absolute power of the government over citizens?

Do you actually prefer a federal government that will stomp out any kind of opposition without a second thought?

pana Loc: are we there yet?

I would miss him if he weren't here though. Having an average IQ he always makes me feel better about myself and is a real boost to my self esteem. :D

jay-are

He is too stupid, not to stupid.

He is to stupid as the sky is to blue. And, he is just too stupid to understand anything simple.

Too:

1: besides, also <sell the house and the furniture too>

2a: to an excessive degree : excessively <too large a house for us>

b: to such a degree as to be regrettable <this time he has gone too far> <he is just too stupid to understand>

c: very <didn't seem too interested>

Constitutional libertarian Loc: St Croix National Scenic River Way

Do you beleive our gov has the right to listen in, collect and store everything thing you speak into a phone, type into your computer or watch on your television?

Do you believe they have the right to come into your home and take documents?

Do you believe they have the right to take your property, your assests, your retirment money.

Do you believe they have the right to tell what you must teach your children or even take them from you?

Do believe they have the right to arrest you on suspicion of terrorism, never charge you with a crime, never let you be judged by your peers just toss you into a bottomless pit where no one will ever find you.

Do you believe they have the right to tell you what to think, believe or speak.

This is the new America that you keep defending day in and day out. Is this the type of country you want your children to inherit?

If you can answer no to anyone of these questions then maybe you should rethink some of the voting decisions you will be making in the future.

risingeagle

Don't float a bill, just pull the plug. Bills get swept away in currents, and nothing gets done. Grow some gonads, and drain it.

cant beleve Loc: Planet Kolob

I live I Utah and I know that we here are very concerned about drought. The legislature is in session and a few of the powers that be crossed right in front of me in a crosswalk that has no light. If I had known which way certain ones voted I may have settled the score one for the little Guy. And this would be a mute point. It was really what went through my mind. Its been almost a normal rainfall this year. Thanks to a California sent low pressure zone. Don't whether thank them or not. Bluffdale also houses Utah's main prison for our worst felons.talk of moving the sight has been going on for years. If this happened it would secure that NSA sight for sure.
Most people are in favor of leaving the prison there.I hope it stays. It also appears that the Intel community chose Utah because of our religious group whom are more than likely to keep a mouth closed.if you saw this sight in person all would be questioning the government role in collection of data. Utah is also fighting over the new license plates. The ones that track your wear abouts. Hopefully the state will win we are trying much to the liberals disdain. God bless America and Utah

Constitutional libertarian Loc: St Croix National Scenic River Way

The religious aspect of your state has a long history of fighting for its rights.

pana Loc: are we there yet?

:thumbup:

Constitutional libertarian Loc: St Croix National Scenic River Way

Oh and I have skied around the world and back again several times and Utah without question truly does have the greatest snow on earth !