Vermont Passes Sweeping New Privacy Laws Designed To
Thwart Warrantless Surveillance
By Kurtis Bright
Green Mountain State Puts Feds, Local Cops On Notice: No
Surveillance Without a Warrant
Lots of good things seem to start in Vermont.
You’ve got your Ben and Jerry of course. Then you’ve got
Bernie--Sanders that is. And no matter where you reside on the political
spectrum you have to admit that hearing a sitting senator calling out the
incestuous, money-grubbing, one-percent-take-all corruption of our system as it
is currently run was refreshing, if ultimately doomed by the machinations of
those same fixers.
And don’t forget the genetically modified food labeling law
Vermont passed, which sent big agri-business and food manufacturers into a
tizzy early last year. That too was ultimately thwarted by the aforementioned
corrupt pay-for-play federal government, deeply ensconced in the pockets of big
agriculture. But at the very least the hard work in Vermont put the issue of
GMOs and the dangerous pesticides they are doused with on the radar for a whole
lot of people who may not have previously considered the issue.
Now a trio Vermont of state senators have hit a home run for
state residents there in terms of privacy and countering police overreach.
Vermont Senators Tim Ashe, Joe Benning and Dick Sears have
created legislation in that is being called Senate Bill 155, a law that would
limit the types and scope of warrantless surveillance police are permitted to
conduct. It is designed to help protect electronic privacy, and it might even
throw a monkey wrench into a number of sketchy Federal surveillance programs
that rely on the passive compliance and cooperation of local and state law
enforcement.
At issue is what is known as the Stingray device, a new favorite
surveillance tool of cops everywhere. This machinery/program is essentially a
van that is equipped to spoof nearby cell phone towers and collect all data
that passes through them in a given neighborhood. It is the undiscriminating
backhoe of data collection, scooping up everything that passes through a nearby
cell phone tower, with tremendous implications for privacy. Grabbing thousands
of text messages and phone conversations sent by people who are not suspected
of any crime--messages that are supposed to be protected by privacy laws--is
troubling to say the least.
The new Vermont legislation, signed into law in June last year
has not only shaken up this law enforcement free-for-all in Vermont by banning
warrantless use of stingray devices to track the location of phones and sweep
up electronic communications--it also restricts the ways police and use drones
for surveillance. Additionally it forbids law enforcement officers from obtaining
electronic data from service providers without a warrant or a judicially issued
subpoena.
Ending the days of the New Wild West of law enforcement data
collection for Vermont residents is a great first step, and people across the
country are taking notice.
So here’s hoping the media also notices this grand rebellion
on a state level from the new normal in which we are expected to flaccidly give up our rights in
exchange for dubious alleged protections.
The nation and the world could do worse than follow the Green Mountain State’s
example on any number of things, it seems.
Pass the ice cream and let’s see how this plays out.
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