Paul Joseph Watson
January 22, 2014
Legislators in Tennessee have introduced a bill that
would ban the state from providing water and electricity to an NSA data
center which is currently involved in building supercomputers designed
to crack encrypted data.
Image: NSA Facility (Wikimedia Commons).
The Fourth Amendment Protection Act,
which mirrors legislation introduced in other states, would prohibit
local and state agencies from “providing material support to…any federal
agency claiming the power to authorize the collection of electronic
data or metadata of any person pursuant to any action not based on a
warrant.”
The bill also disincentivizes local companies from doing business with the NSA.
“We have an out of control federal agency spying on
pretty much everybody in the world. I don’t think the state of Tennessee
should be helping the NSA violate the Constitution and the basic
privacy rights of its citizens – and we don’t have to,” said State Sen.
Stacey Campfield (R-Knoxville), who introduced the bill. “This bill may
not completely stop the NSA, but it will darn sure stop Tennessee from
participating in unjustified and illegal activities.”
The bill’s language that bars government utilities from
providing water and electricity to the NSA is crucial because Tennessee
is home to the Multiprogram Research Facility (MRF) located on the East
Campus of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Inside this facility, NSA
researchers are currently working on building supercomputers able to
crack encrypted information which is set to be stored at the NSA’s newly
built mammoth data center in Bluffdale, Utah.
Recent revelations by
whistleblower Edward Snowden confirmed that the federal agency is also
working on an encryption-cracking quantum computer capable of “owning
the net.”
Cutting off water and electricity to the facility would
obviously prevent the NSA from being able to power and cool its huge
network of computers and other equipment, rendering the facility
obsolete.
Similar to legislation recently introduced in the state of Washington,
the bill would also make it illegal for public universities to serve as
NSA research hubs or recruiting grounds while also making information
gathered by the NSA without a warrant inadmissible in state court.
Lawmakers in Arizona, Indiana, Oklahoma and California are also
considering similar bills.
“The main thing to understand is that this bill denies
the NSA material support from the state, and that includes state
universities. People are going to be upset because they see value in Oak
Ridge. But this legislation only bans material support to those
activities which are part of the warrantless mass-surveillance that the
federal government has been engaging in, and not everything else,” said
the Tenth Amendment Center’s Mike Maharrey.
“The bottom line is that the people of Tennessee don’t
want the NSA consuming massive amounts of their resources so the agency
can spy on them, and pretty much everybody in the world too. It has to
stop,” he added, stressing that legislative action across the country
was not merely symbolic and was part of an effort to create a roadblock
that will force the federal government to dial back NSA spying.
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