They won't. It's called "grandstanding". Welcome to politics.
Also, they second this is about to get real, the NSA announces the redundancy plans (easily 100s of "high tech economy jobs") and everyone runs screaming for the hills.
That's pretty surprising given how incredibly conservative/Republican the state of Utah is. I'd be surprised if the bill passed (and if it was it would surely be caught up in litigation), but kudos to someone in such a conservative area recognizing that personal liberty is more important than security.
I don't think there's anything strange about a predominantly Republican state being worried about what "big brother" is up to in their own back yard. Especially Utah, which still has an unusually fresh memory of real repression at the hands of the federal government related to its history with Mormonism[1] and polygamy[2]. It probably also helps that the Democratic Obama administration has caused a lot of Republican voters in Utah to dislike the federal government even further.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_War [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latter_Day_Saint_polygamy_in_th...
Your surprise that "incredibly conservative/Republican" types are for this reveals that you don't know very much about us.
Isn't Ted Cruz held out as incredibly conservative/Republican? He voted "Yes" on the recent NSA reform:
http://politics.nytimes.com/congress/votes/113/senate/2/282
There are many other conservatives who have major issues with the NSA. Don't believe the hype that their principles are simply anti-left.
Isn't it conservatives that are for guns and their reason is the anti-government militia amendment in the constitution? I'd expect them not to like NSA either.
I know hating the NSA is en vogue but seriously. This is almost as bad as stonewalling and other hostilities toward other branches of government simply because the opposite party is in power (that goes both ways, before you think I'm attacking the right). The NSA committed grievous sin. I'm as upset about it as you. Even so, it baffles me that we would be having this conversation about water.
God, stuff like this just depresses me. And that you love it, too. That depresses me as well. It's a cheap "rah rah go Utah sticking it to the man" puppet show that is ultimately meaningless, but you and many like you just eat it up.
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Edit: Between this stupid "you're submitting too fast" barrier that I've never seen until recently on a >year account, downvoting being blessed as okay to represent disagreement, graying comments as a result which silences disagreement and causes a dogpile effect, arbitrary shadowbans in 2014, and my critique of this political theater being interpreted as defense of the NSA or an advertisement that I need the condescension of having an intelligence agency explained to me (better: I'm not going to answer your question but anybody that passed US History knows the answer), HN has done a pretty good job of silencing opposing thought. I asked a question and it's barely legible. Even now, watching people Cmd+F my username and downvote every hit between refreshes. You sure showed me for not thinking like you!
Since I disagree with many things HN holds dear, and since the people and technology have made clear that's not welcome, after six years of contributing to Hacker News on various accounts, I'm done. I can't take the technology nor the people any more.
It amazes me how hostile HN is now, both socially and technically, and yet people remain. The crowning irony is that people here complain about becoming Reddit, yet on some of the very lesser-known subreddits I've had literally life-changing conversations. Here it's just bickering to see who is more right. Nothing of value comes of this thread, or the hundreds before it. Nothing. I want a refund of my time wasted here.
You're hardly as "upset about it as you" if you can't see why any act that makes their NON-AMERICAN surveillance state harder to implement is a good idea.
But then, you used a throwaway account, so I think that speaks for itself.
Sorry, but the comment above is pure magical thinking. I can't take your ideas about policy seriously if you are not connected to practical reality.
But they also have to dispose of the heated water. An ordinance preventing that would cause complications.
And if electricity supplies are withheld, they then have to spend more money installing generator plant and ( vetted ) personnel to operate that.
> the NSA could still have giant data centers in this country by the simple expedient of building them on ships.
Ships require victuals, fuel and connectivity. Ships are subject to inspection by maritime authorities, unless stationed in international waters - which an intelligence agency would never risk.
~~
All of this would require a request for expansion of the budget, or alternatively eat into the operational aspects of the current budget.
In the absence of any high-level political will to address the underlying issue, making routine operations difficult and expensive would seem to be the only practical approach.
And as you said,
> I can't take your ideas about policy seriously if you are not connected to practical reality.
Yup.
another point is that the law won't seem to have any effect (even if it passes by the way - no guarantees on that) on the current installation until 2021... 7 years is a pretty long term to revert a bill or make new legislation that allows other options...
afaik (I'm not a us citizen) federal law supersedes state law in the US. So it follows that you need to have federal safeguards against wiretapping and whatnot... state legislation is cute at best but seems ineffective.
States can draft laws that contradict federal laws (or disallow federal practices), leading to court cases where the state defends the constitutionality of their law, and the feds defend the constitutionality of the federal law (or practice.)
This is one of the faster ways a law can make its way to the supreme court (see the ACA implementation in half the states, before it came before SCOTUS and it was ruled constitutional.)
It'd be interesting to see this law take effect, have the feds sue, and watch the states defend their decision in the supreme court, in which case we'd get to see a ruling on the constitutionality of the wiretapping (if the justices were willing to hear/rule on it.)
Plus it's relatively easy to cancel a contract 7 years ahead of time, then renew it before that time comes up.
What about the IRS? Doesn't actually every government agency collect data?
Thankfully, reading the bill paints a little more optimistic of a picture, but I can still see several interpretations of the wording that could have unintended consequences.
Their system not only doesn't work but creates haystacks so big that needles get deeply hidden and no real intelligence happens.
The rationale for the spy-everyone story is such an implausible fantasy. We have to stop letting people get away with saying it without being challenged.
This needs to stop.
-Hermann Göring at the Nuremberg trials
>“refuse support to any federal agency which collects electronic data within this state.”
Wikipedia has a huge list of U.S. federal agencies [0]. Can someone provide an example of a federal agency that doesn't collect data in Utah?
Skimming through the list, I would expect that nearly all of them do collect data in Utah.
(Admittedly, I didn't read the bill so it's quite possible that "support" and "data" are very specifically defined.)
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_agencies_in_th...
So even if they pass this next year, the NSA have six years to sue them and do whatever they like - i.e. ruin the lives of anyone who opposes them, and any legislators who voted in favour of this, and then maybe implant their own people, who'll vote that everyone from Utah is now an NSA-serf and must provide blood for cooling.
More effective would be a cunningly managed massive algal bloom upstream from their intakes, which would neatly clog all the things, and hopefully cause a large fire, localised entirely in their information nexus of doom.
You might just wake up one morning with a squad of armed policemen storming your house who will "find" child porn on your computer.
The original House of Cards was British, though it doesn't really reflect how UK politics are.
Yes, Minister comes closer: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080306/
Though that implies that through the farce we get things done, which hasn't been true for a while.
Not sure what this has to do with the water supply to a datacenter though.
