California Legislation Affirms Privacy Rights Against NSA Spying Methods

New submitter amxcoder writes: "A recent bill making its way through the California state legislature reaffirms 4th amendment protections against NSA-style wiretapping of cell phones and computer records, and declares that the NSA's data collection methods and practices are unconstitutional. The bill has passed the California Senate with only a single opposing vote. It would require a warrant to be issued by a Judge before the state's law enforcement and other departments can assist federal agencies in obtaining these records. Similar bills in other states are trickling through the legislative process, but California's is the furthest along. At the least, it will establish that a state of 38 million people are unhappy with the NSA's methods."

Re:So...

[Guest316]

TFA also says the CDAA opposed it as well, for being "too vague." This could be a genuine issue. For one, it could have unintended secondary effects (such as being open enough to be abused in ways it was never intended), or itself be ruled unconstitutional for being too wide-sweeping in its vagueness. This is just speculation for now as I try to dig up more info.

For that matter, I'm not sure of the utility of a state law reaffirming the Constitution's constitutionality. But it could be interesting to see what this one dissenter is all about.

Re:Now we'll see who's really the master.

[sfcat]

Nice federal income tax revenue from California [wikipedia.org] you have there, United States. Would be a shame if something were to happen to it.

This is a game that can be played both ways.

Its actually worse than that. If you remove CA from the US economy, what do you think the jobs/GDP/other national growth metrics for the rest of the US look like over the last 30 years? Can you say perpetual depression? Removing CA from the US would be disastrous, for the other 49 states. Don't kid yourself about the size of the CA economy, its large and growing, unlike the most of the rest of the US. Oh, and we actually pay off our debts [nytimes.com]. You really think politicians from other states would want to have to explain those numbers to the voters?