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Oops, we didn't think of that! Utah may pull NSA plug by cutting water supply to facility

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State reps drafting legislation to stop NSA snooping by other means.

Anti-surveillance activists are preparing to use state law to close the massive NSA compound in Bluffdale, Utah. Although the facility is federal, it still relies on state resources to operate-namely water. Turning off the water would effectively close the facility.

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Highlights

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
Catholic Online (https://www.catholic.org)
12/4/2013 (1 decade ago)

Published in Politics & Policy

Keywords: NSA, emails, search, freedom, spying, size, Utah, facility, water

PROVO, UTAH (Catholic Online) - The American Civil War was sparked when Federal forces attempted to resupply Fort Sumter, a Union island fortress in South Carolina. Confederate forces fired on the fort, forcing its surrender. The bombardment was bloodless-nobody died, but it sparked the bloodiest conflict in American history.

Much like issues debated before the Civil War, issues of federal government power are again before the people. Government power and corruption have always been conversational topics, but now they dominate the headlines with a regularity unseen since the late antebellum period.

Today, Americans are concerned about the ever-increasing pervasive search authority of the state which is aggregating their private lives into profiles within databases, entirely in secret. The government has the power to protect Americans with its sweeping surveillance.

It also has the power to take everything.

Alarmed Americans, including state-level politicians across the country, are working hard to prevent the uncontrolled expansion of federal power by seeking novel ways to nullify efforts to diminish the rights of private individuals.

Known as "nullification" it's a practice used to stop objectionable federal government practices by finding their Achilles heel and striking out within the law.

In Utah, that could mean cutting the water supply to the NSA facility in Bluffdale. The water is controlled by the state.

Bluffdale competed hard to win the NSA facility. The growth is expected to put the otherwise sleepy town on the national map. To win the deal, officials even went so far as to promise the NSA cut-rates on water, $2.05 per 1,000 gallons versus the $3.35 the public pays.

The center is set to consume 1.7 million gallons per day in a state that is mostly desert and needs to manage water resources carefully.

Without water, the massive NSA servers and machinery cannot keep cool and will literally meltdown, as the Wall Street Journal reported on Oct. 7. According to the Journal, electrical surges have destroyed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment.

Even the fictional Death Star had a weak spot. The weak spot for the Bluffdale facility is water.

According to US News, several state representatives in Utah plan to cut the water to the facility. Their names have not yet been released, since the legislation is still being drafted, but insiders told US News that they are planning a long-term campaign to curtail the NSA's invasive activities.

Federal officials are also moving to restrict the NSA by passing laws to curtail the agency's activities.

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Every citizen has an interest in reigning in the agency, even if its work is legitimate. The power wielded by such an agency is so great, and has already been abused, that the temptation to begin using the apparatus for corrupt ends is substantial.

What is to stop a reigning politician from using NSA surveillance to undercut opponents or to influence public perception? What happens to reality when it is shaped by a federal agency with the power to do so by manipulating information at the individual level?

In the short-term, what will happen if the water is shut off? Will the Obama administration nationalize the water supply? Send the military in to operate the state's crucial water pumping equipment?

The next several years will be critical to the future of freedom in America. The NSA must be curtailed, and other sweeping federal maneuvers will need to be halted or reversed. The nation is much closer than many realize to being lost to big government, big business, and whatever evil pulls the levers behind the curtain.

It sounds like a conspiracy theory at work. Funny things about such theories is that now and then, one of them happens to be true.

A birth foretold: click here to learn more!

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