The movement to end the Surveillance State is finally getting serious. With the failure by Congress to rein in the NSA – although the heroic Rep. Justin Amash nearly succeeded in doing so – activists on the state level are mounting a campaign that promises to hit Big Brother where it really hurts – by cutting off the NSA’s water supply at its Bluffdale, Utah, Data Center.
A bill introduced in the Utah legislature by state representative Marc Roberts (R-Santaquin) would cut off the water supply to the NSA’s massive facility which will gobble up 1.7 million gallons of water per day – in a state already hit hard by a region-wide drought.
What do they need all that water for? To cool the mega-computers housing the NSA’s huge store of intercepted data – virtually all the emails transmitted in the country and beyond, including phone calls and our all-important "meta data." The heavily fortified Data Center will store all this purloined information in four halls, each 25,000 square feet, with an additional 900,000 square feet for bureaucratic high mucka-mucks and their administrative and technical peons. The electricity bill alone is estimated at $40 million annually.
The people of Utah, however, are having second thoughts about having this monster in their midst.
"If you want to spy on the whole world and American citizens, great, but we’re not going to help you," says Roberts.
The Roberts bill is part of a nationwide "Nullify the NSA" campaign spearheaded by the OffNow Coalition, a politically diverse group – including Antiwar.com, one of the founding members – that is pushing model legislation already introduced in fifteen states and counting: if passed, these bills would not only forbid local publicly owned water utilities from servicing the NSA, but would also stop any sort of cooperation and/or subsidies from going to the spy agency – including in the educational sphere. The University of Utah, which is publicly funded, has been sucking up to the NSA in order to qualify for grants and has even recently inaugurated a new course on "data management" at the NSA’s suggestion. But the University of Utah chapter of Young Americans for Liberty is on their case, along with Roberts – and a good number of state legislators of both parties.
Former Utah governor and Republican squish Jon Huntsman, whose laughable presidential campaign garnered most if not all its support from the media, apparently cut a deal with the NSA to exempt the Data Center from taxes on their usage of resources such as water and electricity. State lawmakers, however, aren’t buying it. A bill introduced by Republican state senator Jerry Stevenson, SB 45, which would exempt a number of federal projects – including NSA facilities – from state resource taxes is running into vocal opposition. "This property is already getting a great deal on water, and creates very few jobs on a choice piece of land," averred Democrat Jim Dabkis, of Salt Lake City, during debate. "Why do we want to give up that utility tax and have the rate payers from the state have to make up for what is really very little contribution from the rest of the federal government?"
Good question, to which supporters of the bill answer: Huntsman made a deal with the feds and we have to stick by it. But there isn’t much sentiment to abide by an agreement that was apparently made in secret. Says Dabkis:
"I’ve asked, and I have not been able to be provided with it, any piece of paper that says as part of this agreement to bring this very low-job development… That here is commitment that the State of Utah makes [to the federal government] that you don’t have to pay the utility taxes."
In reply, Stevenson bleated that "there is a great deal of institutional memory that puts this agreement in place." But that memory is apparently too ephemeral to have been written down in black and white, as Stevenson sheepishly admitted.
Stevenson’s fellow Republicans aren’t too hot on the NSA either. Interrogated by state senator Wayne Harper as to why Stevenson refused to delete the most controversial section of his bill – the part shielding the NSA Data Center – the Taylorsville Republican said: "I don’t remember that I made any commitments to giving tax subsidies to a spy center." State senator Margaret Dayton (R-Orem) doesn’t recall that either, nor does she remember repealing state laws mandating local control over tax waivers:
"[The data center is] not creating jobs, it is creating a lot of consternation in my area…[this was] not something discussed with the legislature as far as I am aware of."
"Creating a lot of consternation" – this is the key to beating the NSA and its neocon and "progressive" defenders. This is what we have to do in every locality, but especially in Utah – the Achilles heel of the Surveillance State.
Utah state legislators are clearly getting a lot of flak from the voters, and are quite nervous about the Data Center being in their state, but you’d never know that from the national and international coverage of the issue. Spencer Ackerman, writing in The Guardian, deemed the anti-NSA effort "quixotic," without quite saying why, and the Washington Post, the voice of our political class, contends state legislators are sending "mixed messages" when it comes to the NSA. This is pure spin.
One imagines an enormous amount of pressure is now being exerted on these recalcitrant state legislators to go along with the program and allow their state to become world-renown as the NSA’s Mount Doom, but will those ferociously independent Westerners knuckle under? Somehow, I doubt it.
Just in case they need a little persuading, however, I would suggest that the threat of an international boycott of the state of Utah hanging over their heads might push them in the right direction.
That may not be necessary, however, because it looks to me like the local political dynamics are moving in the right direction. If the effort looks like it’s going to succeed, you can expect both the neocon right and the "progressive" left to come down hard on the Beehive State. While the former will denounce the nullification movement as an assault on our "national security," the "progressive" argument, as enunciated by the Center for American Progress’s Zack Beauchamp, is that this will lead to the reintroduction of slavery, racial segregation, and secessionism!
It’s a pathetic argument, and one I dealt with here. However, let us stop and pay tribute to the sheer demagogy of Beauchamp & Co., whose "thinktank" is fat with big donations from military contractors and Obama administration insiders. Their answer to the libertarian and authentic left critique of the NSA is pure race-baiting – the Joan Walsh argument, which characterizes each and every proposal to scale back our overweening federal government as a conspiracy to impose White Supremacy.
As ready-made as this cheap "argument" is for the McCarthyite atmosphere bubbling over in Washington, it isn’t going to enjoy much traction in Utah – or, indeed, anywhere outside of the offices of the Center for American Progress. To say that the entire post-New Deal apparatus of the welfare state is going to suddenly collapse because the people of Utah decided not to countenance a spy facility in their midst is beyond absurd.
Notice the similarity of this "progressive" argument to the fear-mongering of the neocons, who hold up the specter of another 9/11 to justify our emerging police state: if we let the locals kick out the NSA Data Center, says Beauchamp, something terrible is going to happen – the blowing apart of the American nation-state.
What is really going on here is that the residents of Official Washington, who are sitting on a gold mine of government money – and inflated real estate values – while the rest of the country is in the poorhouse, are jealous of their assumed prerogatives. Beauchamp and his fellow Beltway "progressives" don’t think those hicks out in the cornfields should have a say about what uses their resources are put to. That’s a decision for Washington bureaucrats – Beauchamp’s buddies – to make.
Well I have news for Beauchamp: this burgeoning nationwide movement to liberate us from the NSA’s unwanted embrace isn’t going to be stopped by some harebrained conspiracy theory. The American people, no matter what their politics, have had enough, not only of the NSA but of an intellectually bankrupt "progressive" movement that has sold its soul to James Clapper.
As I am writing this, I’ve just learned that Iowa state senator Jake Chapman (R-Adel) has introduced the Fourth Amendment Protection Act, which directs state agencies and subdivisions to not "provide material support for participation with or assistance to, in any form, any federal agency which claims the power, or which purports due to any federal law, regulation, or order, to authorize the collection of electronic data or metadata of any person pursuant to any action not based on a warrant that particularly describes the person, place or thing to be searched or seized."
Says Chapman:
"When I took the oath of office, I swore to support the Constitution of the United States of America and the Constitution of the great State of Iowa. This federal agency has usurped our Constitutional rights. My bill affirms our Constitutional rights and protects the citizens of Iowa. We have learned in recent months through investigations and through the media, the NSA is collecting and storing nearly 30 percent of all Americans’ call records, they collect and store over 200 million text messages daily, and they are tracking American’s through social media, including GPS tracking. We must not trade freedom for security. My bill may not protect all Americans, but it will certainly protect Iowans."
Forget dealing with this in Washington – the corrupt capital of a world empire that has no regard for the Constitution or the opinions of those they supposedly represent. The only way to dismantle the monstrous Panopticon built in secret by our wise rulers is to subvert it at the local level. We’re through with supplication – now let’s move to resistance.
Let the battle cry go up: Turn it off!
Resources for local activism:
- Tenth Amendment Center – model legislation and practical tips
- Bill of Rights Defense Committee – Supported by Dan Ellsberg, Naomi Wolf, and other progressive defenders of the Constitution.
- The OffNow Coalition – keep track of our progress and collaborate with local activists.
- My piece on "How to Fight the NSA – and Win" – download and print to educate your friends and colleagues.
I’m so busy with this #NullifytheNSA campaign – Antiwar.com is a member of the OffNow Coalition – that I barely had time to note that, yes, our fundraising campaign is still waaaay behind – and to remind you that we can’t continue this kind of activist journalism until and unless we make our fundraising goal. So please – if you support our campaign to nullify the NSA and want to make sure it not only continues but succeeds, then now is the time to make your donation to Antiwar.com.
Because, guess what – this local movement to bypass Washington and nullify the NSA looks like it could really succeed.
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
You can check out my Twitter feed by going here. But please note that my tweets are sometimes deliberately provocative, often made in jest, and largely consist of me thinking out loud.
I’ve written a couple of books, which you might want to peruse. Here is the link for buying the second edition of my 1993 book, Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement, with an Introduction by Prof. George W. Carey, a Foreword by Patrick J. Buchanan, and critical essays by Scott Richert and David Gordon (ISI Books, 2008).
You can buy An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000), my biography of the great libertarian thinker, here.
Read more by Justin Raimondo
- The Worst Snowden Revelation of Them All – February 27th, 2014
- A World of Trouble – February 25th, 2014
- Coup in Kiev – February 23rd, 2014
- The FCC Brings Chavismo to America – February 20th, 2014
- Homing in on the Surveillance State – February 18th, 2014
Yes, by all means, turn it off. And then start rolling the guillotines.
Until there are harsh consequences for the sociopaths who have sold America out, nothing meaningful will happen. Power without accountability is a recipe for tyranny.
Yes to the first part, no to the second.
I turn 51 in May.
I wasn't a good fighter when I was a young man.
Save your revolutions until after I die of old age, please.
I vote this one both up and down. Revolutions don't have to be violent. All you have to do is stop taking the tyrants seriously, which is, by no coincidence, their greatest fear.
c'mon man, grow a set already.
I realized at an early age that the macho "virtues" were best left to idiots.
Oh, and to quote a classic Trek episode: "After all these years of leading the fight, YOU seem very much alive."
Also, to quote the bitterly learned wisdom of the '60s radicals, "The first guy who suggests violence is always the undercover cop."
it's nothing to do with "macho" but with the stark reality that people like you and their "approach" have gotten us exactly where we are: with a totalitarian boot on our neck. i'm not deluding myself about what it's going to take to reverse the present course this police state is on. as for being a cop..yeh, sure i am.
OK, if not a cop, then a victim of testosterone intoxication.
Perhaps I also need to grow a nervous system, for I can't feel any boot on my neck.
I don't particularly like our government, but you exaggerate its oppressiveness hilariously.
If our govt. is so oppressive, then why are you still free, and posting on this thread, instead of locked up in some jail somewhere?
"Bitter wisdom"?
You mean accomplishing absolutely nothing while young men with AK-47s in Vietnam ended the war for us?
Besides, I'm just looking out for #1–and isn't that what libertarianism is all about? ;)
"Power without accountability is a recipe for tyranny."
Power is a recipe for tyranny. Accountability is a manufactured illusion.
While corrupt scumbag Orrin Hatch is still pulling strings in Utah, it's hard to be optimistic.
The assault on the pwogwessives in this superb column is well deserved.
For example, http://inthesetimes.com/article/15221/in_defense_…
Disgusting.
But I have heard the same, lame sentiments from other liberals and progressives. Notice that a Nation article is also cited which finds the "real" abuse by the NSA is that too many in its ranks have high level security clearances. In fact the real abuse constituted by the NSA is its very existence and its gross, daily and overwhelming violation of the 4th amendment.
Unlike the genuine Left, now virtually extinct in the West, these worthies have little understanding of the state – make that no understanding of the state.
john walsh
Justin, Remember, you are watching professional wrestling. Bills introduced into legislature are not always introduced because the sponsors expect them to pass – they are introduced to make the rubes think someone cares about their cause. The Republicans are very good at that stunt. Bottom line – the powers that be in Utah are not going to bite the hand bringing in federal funds no matter how sorry the project. This nation will sell itself willingly into slavery.
Fixed:
Politicians are very good at that stunt.
It really is unbelievable that Justin seems to think that there is even a remote possibility that some pissant state legislature is going to put a stop to the NSA by turning off their water. Drowning men and straws, I guess..
What I would appreciate is some actual estimate of the votes which would be needed in Utah's state legislature to pass this, and how many can actually be assured so that it does. While this article is very well presented, it cannot offer hope if there's no idea of what the prospects actually ARE that this can be made law and acted on. Otherwise it's all just a lot of noise outside the walls, to the NSA.
And I'd support your great website financially, if only 90% of my income weren't going just to make rent, thanks to the economic recovery.
so, no regime change in utah or bluffdale. or not enough money to buy not only blluffdale, but entire utah?
but how about sanctions against utah or bluffdale or blockades of [federal] raliroads, highways, airports, etcetc?
legislation is great, but WHEN that fails what will we do? i say burn it to the ground and start arresting everyone who works there for treason. legislation? c'mon. we have no rule of law whatsoever so what is this going accomplish other than having the feds flip us the bird one more time as they defy the will of the people.
Mega-doses of sodium flouride in the NSA employees' drinking water until their brains rot and generous portions of saltpeter in their food to render them sexually impotent?
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
Their brains are already rotted. Otherwise they wouldn't be NSA agents.
Good idea on the saltpeter, though. We certainly can't have them reproducing. :-)
Hmmm…this guy keeps suggesting violence, yet the State doesn't touch him.
Do I smell an agent provocateur?
know you smell your own rank fear and cowardly stench. plus the putrid odor of your own ignorance to the reality of the situation. if everyone in history adopted your frightened attitude 1776 would have never happened. seriously, if the rule of law actually mattered or was relevant there wouldn't even be an nsa. the 4th amendment to the constitution, remember that thing, explicitly forbids institutions and actions like the nsa.
so answer this question: if/when the law passes, and the feds roundly ignore it, what is the response of the citizenry?
Well, as I stated in reply to another article, the proper response of the citizenry is to make government functionaries realize there will be real-world consequences for their actions when said functionaries are abusing their authority (such as police brutality, etc.), acting under color of law/authority or outright ignoring the law. The level of response will escalate according to the severity of the situation, up to the use of lethal force–the 2nd Amendment gives us this right in the face of a tyrannical government.
Unfortunately, I think things are going to have to become a lot worse before the vast majority of the sheeple wake up actually start resisting in any meaningful way ZOG's tyrannical, unlawful and outright murderous behavior. However when we witness things like the brain-dead lemmings of Boston cheering on the jack-booted thugs last year, I really wonder sometimes.
"Boston Strong" – gimme a break!
"ZOG"
Neo-Ratzi alert!
"1776 would have never happened"
And slavery would have been abolished in 1834, without a Civil War, for that was when the British Empire abolished it.
As for the response of the citizenry, this specific citizen is 51 and has no descendants, so if your scenario materializes, why should I not just accept it and wait for the next life? I, specifically, am not afflicted, and what is libertarianism but "Looking Out For #1", as one prominent libertarian entitled one of his books?
As for courage and cowardice, one human's cowardice is another human's prudence, and one human's courage is another human's folly. You have your opinion, and I have mine, and there is no structure of objectively proven facts to decide between us.
Whoops, 50. I turn 51 later this year.
While the British Empire was no model of perfect liberty, it was hardly equal to the USSR or Ratzi Germany for oppressiveness. We'd have done all right had we not rebelled. Did Canada, Australia, and New Zealand become totalitarian hellholes?
Get a job, hippy.
I had a nice one for about 20 years, then that phenomenon called "outsourcing" of your precious CRAPitalism got it.
Those in charge of the Federal Gov't, along with then Gov. Huntsman, are completely brain dead. How else to explain putting this mammoth unneeded spy center, with its need for millions of gallons of water, in an arid state that is mostly desert. An article that Justin alludes to says that the people there have resorted to praying for rain. Utah is one of eleven mostly western states that have been designated as natural disaster areas due to three years of drought. Farmers in the Joaguin Valley in California are unable to get water brought in and their crops are dying. Yet the Feds are hell bent to make sure that they get their water first regardless of the consequences. We truly live in bizarro world.
"the "progressive" argument, as enunciated by the Center for American Progress’s Zack Beauchamp, is that this will lead to the reintroduction of slavery, racial segregation"
*sigh* Could you Left idiots do us a favor and stop trying to say we want segregation and slavery back. That canard is getting REAL old. Is it really such a stretch to accept that we're just tired of tyranny?
•Computers collecting and analyzing Internet traffic is just as much "surveillance" as a person peeping through a window
•Note that human rights law doesn't allow mass, untargeted spying on ordinary, innocent people;
End mass spying now! Section 215 of the Patriot Act should not be used to collect every single Americans' calling records. And Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act shouldn't be used to "incidentally" or otherwise collect Americans' emails, phone calls, or chats. Protect the privacy rights of our digital communications.
Securing digital data, one computer at a time… http://www.americansrighttoprivacy.com
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Let's put nullification and interposition into proper perspective. First and foremost, they are defensive tools, and as such are only effective as a State is willing to back them up. The first time a State attempted to nullify a Federal law, Andrew Jackson threatened to mobilize the US Army and invade South Carolina. This ended in a settlement, in which South Carolina merely obtained a watering down of the law it sought to nullify. And this is the dilemma. The States are going to have to be prepared to use armed force to make their nullications and interpositions stick, and I just do not see enough people in State and local governments with enough guts to do that. Except for a small percentage, State and local politicians view their offices merely as stepping stones to Federal office and will not jeopardize that "career path" by any principled opposition to tyranny. And with further regard to armed resistance, what's going to happen if State authorities try to use their respective National Guards to try to stop a full-blown Federal attempt to carry out an objectionable action? The National Guard will, of course, be Federalized to prevent that. Therefore, the National Guard will have to refuse to be Federalized and will have to be prepared to fight. Again, I just do not see that happening. One little observed result of the Guard's heavy usage in the recent foreign wars is that it has been thoroughly seeped in DC's propaganda and is now manned by soldiers who are essentially Federal in their outlook. And then there are the State and local police, who have likewise been Federalized through subsidies of military equipment, homeland security grants, and the recruitment of THOUSANDS of military veterans of recent service in DC's wars who have clearly demonstrated that when Washington says "terrorism," their hands move instinctively to their side arms. This is what we face.
States threatening war against the Federal Government, huh? That worked out great, last time.
Is Obama going to start drone striking these "terrorist" enablers in Utah? The Obamacrat liberals in the media can cast the drone strike victims as opponents of same sex marriage, so it clearly serves them right.