Montana Passes Sweeping Anti-Government Spying Bill

What is so interesting about Montana’s House Bill 603, which passed overwhelmingly the state Senate by a 96-4 margin, is that it was passed in April, or several months before Edward Snowden’s NSA revelations. Talk about some foresight. Hopefully, we will see many more such bills sweep across the nation, as “change” will have to be done at the local level. The central government in D.C. is hopelessly corrupt and I don’t see that changing. We must just decentralize away from the District of Criminals on our own. From the Atlantic Wire:

Privacy advocates, behold the Montana legislature and House Bill 603, a measure that requires the government to obtain a probable cause warrant before spying on you through your cell phone or laptop. HB 603 was signed into law this past spring, effectively making Montana the first state to have an anti-spy law long before anyone heard of Edward Snowden. To be clear, HB 603 passed the state Senate overwhelmingly by a vote of 96-4 in April and was signed into law on May 6.

At the time, the law might have seemed extraneous, or even paranoid. But knowing what we know now, the law seems prophetic. The law is pretty straightforward—the government can’t spy on Montanans through their electronic devices unless they obtain a warrant:

That effectively makes Montana the first state in the country’s history to pass an electronic privacy law that protects you from the government. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Daniel Zolnikov, and Montana’s lawmakers outpaced all the states in the country when it comes to privacy.

“The younger Democrats and Republicans were the ones really for the bill. The older legislators in Helena didn’t say much for or against it,” Zolnikov told the Daily Interlake.

The above line explains precisely why the government is concerned about “an increasingly disgruntled, post-Great Recession workforce and the entry of younger, ‘Gen Y’ employees who were ‘raised on the Internet,’” as noted in the recent “Insider Threat” article from McClatchy.  

Full article here.

In Liberty,
Mike

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8 thoughts on “Montana Passes Sweeping Anti-Government Spying Bill”

  1. And why would one expect a federal government that believes it is above the law and above the constitution to pay the slightest attention to this?

    Reply
    • It’s still nice to be able to believe your state and local government aren’t getting in on it.

      And that they just might support other measures to limit the Feds’ spying power.

  2. Yes, I live in Montana. Just what is the great state of Montana going to do when some Montanan is the victim of such an outrage? Will they throw the cuffs on the POTUSSA?

    Reply
  3. why the totally offensive male gamers only ad? it is not appropriate on a public forum site .a porn site ok . Makes me question your integrity.

    Reply
    • First of all, do you even know how Google ads work? The ads are populated based partly on your own browsing history, so perhaps you should question your own personal browsing habits before spouting nonsense.

  4. IF YOU WANT A SERIOUS LAW to stop this,IT HAS TO HAVE TEETH,its a waste of time if it don’t,CHARGE ANY GOVERNMENT AGENT WITH SPYING and have a special team who rounds them up,charges them with spying and they spend 20 years in prison AT HARD LABOR,breaking rocks in the yard,ALL DAY, EVERY DAY,winter,and summer,TILL THEY DO THEIR TIME OR DROP DEAD,kissing their ass,or a SLAP on the hand, won’t work,they laugh at you…………..

    Reply

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