-Off Now represents an unprecedented collaboration between left and right wing organizations. The 10th Amendment Center is associated with right wing causes like nullifying Obamacare or gun control regulations. The Bill of Rights Defense Committee is well known as left leaning civil rights organization. This partnership has been characterized by mutual respect and a shared love of liberty. It is amazing.
- The Off Now legislation has real legal consequences in the opinion of experienced constitutional lawyers like Shahid Buttar of BORDC. In California, the Off Now Bill SB828 would prevent the NSA from recruiting on UC campuses and impair opening an NSA facility in the future in CA. In Washington State, it would impair the functionality of the Yakima facility considerably.
- In SF, come to the AT&T building at 611 Folsom on the 11th to hear whistle blower Mark Klein speak and to remind the SF community that the NSA is capturing America's internet traffic right in their city.
Shouldn't OffNow go further and propose legislation that impacts the telcos and all other companies within its borders that co-operate with the NSA without putting up a fight? Take AT&T for example. Near as I can tell, it has been one of the worst offenders and greatest facilitators. For a state to take direct action against the interstate business model of AT&T and other telcos, provides a great economic incentive for AT&T to actively fight back against mass surveillance in the form of challenging NSLs and lobbying against increases in surveillance state powers.
If we want to promote a political environment with greater states rights, you need to promote a legal framework where most of our goods and services are provided by organizations that cannot easily grow to be larger than a state because the cost of being interstate presents so many transactional costs to make it less competitive.
Won't anybody 'attacking' the NSA will be labelled a terrorist, and anybody signing a petition simply add their own name to the list?
If any kind of action like this is taken against the NSA on US soil, I'm sure it will result in increased legal protective measures for the NSA to help safeguard from this new 'terrorist threat', which will only make people want to disrupt them more.
Basically what I fear is a home-grown 'terrorist' movement that the NSA will use to justify its recent behaviour. This works so well in their favour (long-term) that I can't even rule out the possibility of the whole thing being a false flag actually endorsed by the NSA. This can't end well…
So, you're saying that organized political action to affect democratic change in America could be considered a "terrorist" threat? The fact that you're even worried about this shows how far our country has slid in terms of liberty and democracy. We are now on the cusp of being a police state, but I really hope people won't let that dissuade them from exercising their civic duty to engage the democratic process.
The action is a physical with-holding of resources in order to prevent an arm of government from operating. That doesn't sound like "political" action. Warranted or not that description vastly underplays the gravity of the proposed action IMO.
Of course it is political action! It happens all the time, for private developments (eg casinos) as well as government developments (eg, local governments enacting laws to make putting sewage treatment plants or nuclear waste treatment plants in their areas)
It is effective because it adds friction. Things seldom change from one action, but lots of things add up.
You may redefine "political action" such that this sort of action does not qualify, but there is no way you can call it terrorism without resorting to absolutely ludicrous redefinitions.
I think you are entirely correct. We've taken some measures to protect signatories. The site works really well with TOR/No Script. You can also conceal your name from being listed on the site.
It's easy to yell from the sidelines, but what is this hoping to accomplish? A total shutdown of the NSA?
I wonder how realistic this goal is. Forcing states to pass legislature to ban offering help in any way to the NSA? Million dollar contracts down the drain, because a local government official turns off the water tap, turning data centers into ghost towns? Seems like a very long shot.
Secondly I wonder how the pro's and con's weigh up. I think even the staunchest supporters of (internet) freedom would, at least to some extend, agree that intelligence gathering and spying is a current necessity for a world power like America. It would probably put their entire military in danger for intelligence efforts to drop to zero.
That "the people" in general want things to change is clear and efforts to create such change are mostly noble. I think a balance can be found where the NSA acts within bounds, with oversight and transparency. Where companies can disclose the numbers on information requests. None of these secret court shenanigans anymore. Versus an NSA that does what it is made to do, does its job well (hiring proud academics included), and generally works in the interest of all American people (and their allies). There should be a balance between boundless spying and no spying at all.
>It's easy to yell from the sidelines, but what is this hoping to accomplish? A total shutdown of the NSA?
I doubt anyone thinks that, realistically. From what I gather this is essentially protesting, although a protest that actually causes those in power some discomfort. The NSA would have to start sourcing/generating it's own power and water. Anyone who works there will become persona-non-grata. In my opinion, this actually has the chance of doing something. Much better than 500,000 people marching down Broadway, then going home at the end of the day (Iraq war protest, anyone?).
And I don't think anyone wants to see the NSA go away completely either. I believe that if the Snowden documents revealed that everything the NSA was doing was outside the nations borders (or just not targeted at US citizens), no one would give two shits. They would even be pleasantly surprised, probably. But that's not what we found out. We found out that the NSA and it's secret court take the most liberal reading of the laws in place to do whatever they want, and with no good controls over who has access to what information, or when.
In short, this is a different form of protest, hopefully a more effective one.
This. Furthermore, it shows employees of the NSA that many American citizens consider their current M.O. unconstitutional and therefore unpatriotic. At the end of the day the NSA is made up of Americans and it's important to remind those in this ivory tower that America values freedom and liberty over any security measures that will come at the cost of freedom and liberty.
When a state bars the NSA from doing business within its borders, its sending a message to all NSA employees that the NSA currently does not represent the vision for America it believes in.
I think that the idea is not to force the NSA to completely shut down, but rather to force them to reassess their programs in order of importance given resource limitations. A program that doesn't yield much useful intelligence but consumes a very large amount of resources (such as the mass data collection programs) would get cut in favor of something less demanding yet more fruitful (likely targeted surveillance and data gathering.)
The NSA has operated for years under a total lack of resource constraints; which is a bad thing for any government agency. I would posit that the NSA mass surveillance efforts, in addition to being a troublesome invasion of privacy, are a textbook example of government waste. They're not effective, yet the bureaucrats keep expanding them because if they didn't, they and their contractors would be out of a job.
What's worse, shutting down the NSA (remember, the FBI, CIA, etc, are still completely operational), or leaving it functioning with the damage it does to our democracy?
Given that the NSA has lately been justifying its existence by all that terror it stops, and then has been able to give exactly one case where its investigations have led to something (i.e., that one guy who was sending $8k to a terrorist body), and there is zero transparency into anything else it does...I'm extremely okay with it shutting down their data centers until such a time as the court system stops giving them a pass.
The CIA should not be relying on NSA intercepts for domestic subjects, since they (the CIA) are not even supposed to operate domestically.
I see no reason in the world to let these people continue to violate their own charters as well as the Fourth Amendment with total impunity. Cut off their air supply as well as their water supply, and I'll take my chances with the terrorists.
The old days? Isn't this what the Five Eyes partners are doing for each other now? Now or then, it's breaking the intent of the law. If we mean to spy on our citizens, then dadgumit, state it explicitly.
I agree that the CIA shouldn't be doing domestic intelligence work, but that's not relevant to the argument upthread, which suggests that the NSA could be shut down without crippling foreign intelligence because the CIA would continue to operate.
What a load of naysayers. Sending the message that pervasive domestic surveillance is unwelcome could be effectively sent with a couple critical states cutting off local resources and enacting laws that are hostile to the operators of such a facility. It doesn't have to be perfect. It's a form of protest.
This sounds great. Even has a slight geurilla ring to it, that appeals to the freedom-fighter in all of us.
But, as many have noted on this thread, they will simply find ways around these obstacles. So, it's just another form of cat-and-mouse in a game we are destined to lose, as their resources are virtually unbounded.
In all, it really goes the long way around getting done what really needs to be done: change and clarify laws which bring the NSA back under heel.
IMO, pursuing anything else outside of legal redress as a primary goal (including pure technical solutions like encryption) is simply assuming the wrong posture. It concedes their right to do these things, as long as they can skirt the chestnuts we try to shovel into their path. In this, we allow ourselves to be put at odds with our own government and abandon the rule of law, as well as the very principle that our government works for us.
It's an attempt to circumvent democratic process. That may be deemed necessary but then isn't there a larger issue - that you have a pseudo-democracy in which the only way for the populus to combat rogue agencies within the state government is to perpetrate acts of aggression against their own infrastructure? The infrastructure those same people are paying taxes to implement?
Basically you're saying that USA democracy has broken to such an extent that the people need to initiate war - of a form - against the government's agencies.
> It's an attempt to circumvent democratic process.
How is passing a state law circumventing democratic process? Isn't it more of a circumvention if all of the locals vote against the NSA, but the NSA still moves in?
Exactly. And, if our democracy is broken to that extent and the people are so apathetic about fixing it, then why should we expect that they would line up behind such "guerilla" action as proposed by this article?
Agreed, the first thing that comes to mind is "careful what you wish". At present, the NSA has an obvious vulnerability in that their data centres are somewhat in the open, and scattered around. If this scheme actually worked, they'd simply use it to enforce even higher secrecy, and complete autonomy from local state utilities.
This is a dangerous path to go down, essentially assuming the role of aggressors against the state, and causing them to harden their defences. It would completely subvert the key concepts of democracy, and end bloody.
Change the law, change their oversight, work within the system to improve it.
All the federal government would have to do is threaten to cut all federal funding and subsidies to the state. An example would be funding for interstates, but there are many many more. I can't remember when exactly, but I'm pretty sure they've played this card before.
I can't think of a single state whose politicians would not back down from such a threat.
In this particular case "they" equals congress, not the administration. Obama is not legally able to hold highway funding hostage to get states to implement his doomed healthcare act; He could direct congress to do the above, but they are generally too busy discussing the repeal of the ACA these days.
I genuinely don't understand this statement as a metric for assessing effectiveness.
What you're saying is that the best way to tell whether or not the federal government is doing its job is by the simple number of laws it passes. That sounds incorrect. I don't know, maybe I don't understand that measurement, but it seems like volume is a piss-poor way to measure how well the government is operating.
It's a measure of productivity, not necessarily quality. Sure it's possible to be productive without being effective (pass a lot of shitty laws), but it's impossible to be effective without being productive (pass no laws at all), unless there is little to fix, which is most certainly not the case.
When people complain that this is the least effective Congress in history, they mean it has spent all of its time debating and posturing, rather than actually passing any laws.
In many cases I feel that Congress doing nothing is the better option. Unfortunately, when Congress acts they tend to make things worse. So a Congress that does nothing is probably about average in terms of effectiveness for me.
I did a quick calculation for the energy consumption of Tianhe-2, which has a power consumption of 17808 kW ...
1,538,611,200,000 J per day. Of course the Tianhe-2 is rated as the fastest, and the NSA won't be using something as big, but it gives you a rough idea of the power consumption of these machines.
If you cut the power to NSA facilities they will just install local generation, even trucking in their own fuel. Not sure about water and such but I'm sure they could do the same there.
It's a move in a large game of chess. Just because your opponent will counter your movement, doesn't mean you shouldn't make a move. This is a viable strategy. The earlier it is, the more likely you have resources to counter a movement. This is an option now and with sound strategy could be used in various scenarios.
The NSA is successful now because of computational power and obscurity. They operate in the dark and as a result get away with a lot. But operational funds that feed their workers that work for them on all levels come from the people. Bureaucracy is acting as levels of abstraction preventing the people from shutting them down by denial of resources. The further you are able to cut down the bureaucracy and make it apparent that the NSA needs money from the people to operate, the more likely you are to engage the american people into saying 'no'.
So, should they need to spend money on energy, they will have to find a means to get it, and the more you block them, the higher the price gets. At some point, if the campaign is successful, they will have to appeal to the people for money, i.e. some tax to do it. Maybe it will be defense spending, or maybe it will be energy tax. But the clearer it becomes an issue of money, the more obvious what the move is, and can thus be countered into a game finishing move.
That's the problem with trying to hit the NSA in the pursestrings -- if they need more money, they'll just get it, and to add insult to injury they'll get it from us via taxes.
Where it could be spun as a 'LEED, zero emissions data center' (a Thorium reactor, perhaps!). As for cooling, the old Cray's used Fluorinert - I suspect 3M would be happy to brew something up.
I think this plan is very naive. There will always be money for more police and military stuff. North Korea is extreme example. Result of those obstructions would be mostly prosecution of activists.
Yes, let's fund the NSA through taxes and then pay more by sabotaging them.
Here's an equally brash idea...
Innovators in the USA threaten to become primary residents elsewhere. Let other countries bid on the incentives they'd like to enact to bring thousands of startups and leading innovators.
My favorite of all the restrictions so far is to ban recruiting at colleges and universities. The NSA recruited heavily out of my school -- many of my peers interviewed with them (it was hard to find an employer looking for so many engineering new grads).
It took some digging to figure out who is backing this. It looks like it's an org called the Tenth Amendment Center. Does anyone know who these guys are? Are they reputable? Will my money actually go to this cause?
Heat of vaporisation of water is tremendous, and the amount of cooling you gain by allowing for evaporation is huge. You can contain the evaporative cycle, but that takes a lot more engineering. As with anything, it's a cost/benefit question.
Stopping a water supply to enact damage to a part of your, supposed, democratic governmental machine sounds to me like the first act of a civil war ...
This is a case of the "ends" creating a justification to open the door for the "means" to slip through.
"States rights" and "nullification" have long been used to justify trampling the constitutionally protected rights of minorities of every race, creed, color, and religion. The simplest and best way to "nullify" the NSA, is to change it.
If that takes a Constitutional Amendment, so be it. Its time to get to work.
That states rights and nullification have sometimes been used for bad purposes doesn't mean that any use of states rights and nullification is automatically bad. Your statement reads as though that's what you mean. But surely you wouldn't say that states setting their own laws regarding taxation, wages, etc. (which are an exercise of states rights) are inherently bad?
> If that takes a Constitutional Amendment, so be it. Its time to get to work.
We already have one: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
What we need is to ensure it is being followed and enforced.
In general, bad laws are better fixed by repeal or amendment, as opposed to fiat of the executive branch, because they represent the people. The NSA spying on Americans is bad, and I believe a violation of the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution. That being said, the way to fix this is through Congress or the Supreme Court.
If you really want to see progress on this front, do it through the courts and through Congress. The wheels for this are already in motion, but it could take some time to have an effect. The two biggest things that could speed this up are to convince your friends and relatives that this is an important issue, and to vote for a non-establishment candidate in the upcoming mid-term election.
Unless this becomes an issue for the average American (hint: it's not yet), or unless we get non-establishment representation in the Capitol building, this won't get fixed the way it ought to.
Underground aquifers, reservoirs from streams, rivers, etc. Northern Utah gets a fair amount of snow as well. There are around 2.9 million people living in Utah[1]. There is also a fair amount of agriculture in the state, especially up north, which uses most of the water in the state[2]. States like Arizona and New Mexico are much more arid.
Wait, its illegal to take take racial demographic statistics in France? I find that really surprising. I went and tried to look up French census information, but alas, I could only find it in French. I can however find estimates of racial demographics in France on wikipedia and such.
In ten years time, this comment of yours will automatically place you on a list of 'dissidents'. You will be targeted for heightened (full) surveillance. Your phone will be tracked, all email and phone calls recorded and scanned automatically for review by a machine. You will not be allowed to fly, or find yourself in the queue for "special searches". You will be subject to stop and search on the street under the anti terrorism act, though no policeman will actually know why you are on that list.
All of this will happen automatically. No person will have triggered this process, nor intervene on your behalf. Every TSA agent or UK equivalent will have no idea why you have been marked in the system as "terrorist/dissident". You will simply be treated as such. There will be no recourse. Your children, your siblings and your parents, plus your friends will have a slightly higher weighted bayesian 'terrorist' score placed on their files, because you know them.
Welcome to the world of tomorrow. Welcome to the real Skynet.
Can you elucidate why the UK populus needs to turn to guerilla tactics against GCHQ?
If you can then you've a platform on which, instead, to press for political reform. I'd very much like to hear a succinct elucidation before anyone says that the political process is too broken to make viable such change as is necessary.
-Off Now represents an unprecedented collaboration between left and right wing organizations. The 10th Amendment Center is associated with right wing causes like nullifying Obamacare or gun control regulations. The Bill of Rights Defense Committee is well known as left leaning civil rights organization. This partnership has been characterized by mutual respect and a shared love of liberty. It is amazing.
- The Off Now legislation has real legal consequences in the opinion of experienced constitutional lawyers like Shahid Buttar of BORDC. In California, the Off Now Bill SB828 would prevent the NSA from recruiting on UC campuses and impair opening an NSA facility in the future in CA. In Washington State, it would impair the functionality of the Yakima facility considerably.
What can you do?
- If you live in Washington State, call the office of Laurie Jenkin's and ask for hearing on HB2272 http://www.leg.wa.gov/House/Representatives/Pages/jinkins.as...
- Ask your employers to participate in the The Day We Fight Back on Feb 11th. https://thedaywefightback.org/
- In SF, come to the AT&T building at 611 Folsom on the 11th to hear whistle blower Mark Klein speak and to remind the SF community that the NSA is capturing America's internet traffic right in their city.
- If you live in CA, sign Shame on Feinstein. https://shameonfeinstein.org
- Support the BORDC and the 10th Amendment center financially.