Several states are telling the NSA they need a warrant to spy on citizens
Lawmakers in several states, however, aren’t waiting.
According to the Tenth Amendment Center, lawmakers in Missouri are proposing to amend their state constitution. Their plan would add “and electronic communications and data” to the provision that provides privacy and security for residents.
If changed by voters, it would read: “That the people shall be secure in their persons, papers, homes [and], effects, and electronic communications and data, from unreasonable searches and seizures; and no warrant to search any place, or seize any person or thing, or access electronic data or communication, shall issue without describing the place to be searched, or the person or thing to be seized, or the data or communication to be accessed, as nearly as may be; nor without probable cause, supported by written oath or affirmation.”
The Joint Resolution, pending before the state Senate, proposes allowing Missouri voters to decide next November whether or not to amend their constitution.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/01/states-to-nsa-get-a-warrant/#IijZkq6oBtosUfSJ.99
Lawmakers in several states, however, aren’t waiting.
According to the Tenth Amendment Center, lawmakers in Missouri are proposing to amend their state constitution. Their plan would add “and electronic communications and data” to the provision that provides privacy and security for residents.
If changed by voters, it would read: “That the people shall be secure in their persons, papers, homes [and], effects, and electronic communications and data, from unreasonable searches and seizures; and no warrant to search any place, or seize any person or thing, or access electronic data or communication, shall issue without describing the place to be searched, or the person or thing to be seized, or the data or communication to be accessed, as nearly as may be; nor without probable cause, supported by written oath or affirmation.”
The Joint Resolution, pending before the state Senate, proposes allowing Missouri voters to decide next November whether or not to amend their constitution.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/01/states-to-nsa-get-a-warrant/#IijZkq6oBtosUfSJ.99
Lawmakers in several states, however, aren’t waiting.
According to the Tenth Amendment Center, lawmakers in Missouri are proposing to amend their state constitution. Their plan would add “and electronic communications and data” to the provision that provides privacy and security for residents.
If changed by voters, it would read: “That the people shall be secure in their persons, papers, homes [and], effects, and electronic communications and data, from unreasonable searches and seizures; and no warrant to search any place, or seize any person or thing, or access electronic data or communication, shall issue without describing the place to be searched, or the person or thing to be seized, or the data or communication to be accessed, as nearly as may be; nor without probable cause, supported by written oath or affirmation.”
The Joint Resolution, pending before the state Senate, proposes allowing Missouri voters to decide next November whether or not to amend their constitution.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/01/states-to-nsa-get-a-warrant/#IijZkq6oBtosUfSJ.99
According to the Tenth Amendment Center, lawmakers in Missouri are proposing to amend their state constitution. Their plan would add “and electronic communications and data” to the provision that provides privacy and security for residents.
If changed by voters, it would read: “That the people shall be secure in their persons, papers, homes and, effects, and electronic communications and data, from unreasonable searches and seizures; and no warrant to search any place, or seize any person or thing, or access electronic data or communication, shall issue without describing the place to be searched, or the person or thing to be seized, or the data or communication to be accessed, as nearly as may be; nor without probable cause, supported by written oath or affirmation.”
The Joint Resolution, pending before the state Senate, proposes allowing Missouri voters to decide next November whether or not to amend their constitution.
According to the Tenth Amendment Center, federal judges and lawyers may squabble over the constitutionality of the NSA data-gathering, but lawmakers could make it impossible for any information obtained to be used in those states.
In Kansas, Rep. Brett Hildabrand, R-Shawnee, prefiled a bill that would “ban all state agencies and local governments in the state from possessing data ‘held by a third-party in a system of record’ and would prohibit any such information from being ‘subject to discovery, subpoena or other means of legal compulsion for its release to any person or entity or be admissible in evidence in any judicial or administrative proceeding.’”
The access the data, under the bill, government would be required to obtain “express informed consent” or a warrant.
In Kansas, it’s called the Fourth Amendment Protection Act.
“I want to make sure that electronic privacy in Kansas is protected in the same way that physical letters in the mail are protected from random government searches,” Hildabrand told the center. “Each day, we hear a new revelation about how the NSA is violating our personal privacy. My bill will ensure the state of Kansas doesn’t utilize this illegally obtained data.”
Hildabrand noted that USA Today reported early in December that more than 100 police agencies in 33 states now use technology “to intercept and catalog the electronic communication of average, law-abiding citizens.”
“We must be ever-vigilant that their rights are not being infringed upon by big government taking advantage of advances in technology,” he said.
In Missouri, voters soon might be able to decide on the proposed state constitutional amendment.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Patrick Leahy is attempting to shine more light on the NSA's activities, but the hearings have only served as venues for administration officials to parrot talking points and provide non-answers to important questions. This is very similar to what happened after the New York Times released the first reports of warrantless wiretapping in December 2005.
Proof of the hearings’ ineffectiveness, it took three hearings - nine hours -for Senator Leahy to clarify just how many terrorist attacks the collection of all Americans' calling records stopped. In the first hearing (July), government witnesses said the program stopped "54 terrorist attacks." By the third hearing (October)—and after much pressure by Senator Leahy—General Alexander corrected his statement: it turns out the program had only stopped "one, perhaps two" terror plots, one of which involved "material support." Aside from this, there are still two sets of questions from the hearings by Senator Richard Blumenthal and Senator Ron Wyden that the intelligence community has still left unanswered.
It shouldn’t take three hearings over several months for a member of Congress to obtain accurate and understandable information from the Director of the NSA.
Congress must initiate a full-scale, targeted, investigation outside of its regular committees. Such an investigation would normally fall under Congress' intelligence or other oversight committees. But any investigation into the NSA's activities must include a review of the current Congressional oversight regime. Since the creation of the intelligence committees in 1978, there has been no external audit or examination of how the system has performed.
A review is needed when the Senate intelligence committee's own chair, Senator Dianne Feinstein, admits how extraordinary difficult it is to obtain information from the intelligence community.
Members of Congress have complained that briefings are like "playing a game of 20 questions" and other members have even noted how the House intelligence committee may have neglected to pass information to members before a key vote.
Former Vice President Walter Mondale and Senator Gary Hart - two former members of Congress who were instrumental in creating the Senate intelligence committee- have also said that the intelligence committees are not operating as they were originally intended.
http://www.wnd.com/2014/01/states-to-nsa-get-a-warrant/
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/12/three-hearings-nine-hours-and-one-accurate-statement-why-congress-must-begin-full