Maryland Lawmakers Push to Cut Water, Electricity to Spy Agency Headquarters

I hope this passes and gets swiftly struck down by the courts.<p>I hope it passes because I&#x27;m none too pleased with the NSA right now.<p>I hope it gets struck down because I&#x27;d hate for a precedent to be established where cutting off utilities to your political enemies becomes an accepted political tactic. It&#x27;s 265 Kelvin outside right now and a disturbingly large number of representatives in my state legislature would love to cut off the heat at various LGBT advocacy groups.

I&#x27;d be shocked if this even came close to passing. NSA is directly and indirectly easily the largest employer in the state of Maryland and on top of that they fund probably at least several research labs and other research and education initiatives at multiple universities in the state. Voting for this would probably be political suicide for any politician frankly I&#x27;m surprised any of them even had the cojones to introduce the bill.<p><a href="http://www.choosemaryland.org/factsstats/Documents/Major%20Employers/2013/Major%20Employers%20Maryland%202013.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.choosemaryland.org&#x2F;factsstats&#x2F;Documents&#x2F;Major%20E...</a>

In other news, several lawmakers receive a dossier of personal accomplishments which they are reluctant to speak of.

So a state government wants to enact legislation to harass a federal agency? I doubt that will be an issue for very long.<p>Also, the article mentions Fort Meade uses as much electricity as the city of Annapolis. Baltimore Gas and Electric and Howard County would have some choice words about lost revenue.

Emotionally appealing as it is, at this stage such legislation has about as much chance of being implemented as for someone nuking all the NSA facilities from orbit.<p>Though I actually wish that could happen. It&#x27;s the only way to be sure.<p>You know, I can imagine a sequence of quite possible events over the next few years, in which some other country (Russia for eg) could do exactly that, and be hailed by a majority of Americans as a heroic savior of the American Ideal.<p>The NSA, and the various enabling entities behind this whole spying scandal, are not psychologically capable of backing down. This conflict is only just starting to warm up. It&#x27;s going to get quite hot before resolving.

I&#x27;d like to see some sort of app created kindof like quora only anonymous -- but only for senators and congressmen. They can login and answer questions asked by anyone such as &quot;Has the NSA ever coerced you or another member of congress to the best of your knowledge&quot; - then they could answer the question anonymously w&#x2F;out threat of being found out.<p>Or option 2 : Attention pulitzer prize seekers - do a documentary ask every senator&#x2F;congressmen you can get a hold of to answer that question - conceal their information&#x2F;identity if they want it conealed- but get a REAL answer to that question.

A question about state rights..<p>Does a US State have the right to refuse to supply services to an entity involved in illegal activities as defined by the US Constitution?<p>That is the real question here..