California Bill, passed by its Senate, would ban blanket NSA collection under Patriot Act/ CBS

California's state Senate voted 31-1 to ban state officials and state corporations from participating with federal agencies to collect electronic data on any persons in a sweeping, rather than individual, fashion. Silicon Valley entities like Google are located in California; they have been ordered by federal officials to participate in surveillance activities.  This bill, if passed by the Assembly, should thus set up a legal battle between federal and California state officials regarding the legality of such participation.

CBS News Reports:

LOS ANGELES  — A sweeping bill intended to rein in the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) is making its way through the halls of Sacramento.
The California State Senate has voted overwhelmingly to approve Senate Resolution 16, which calls on lawmakers in Washington to take action against the NSA.

Passed in a bipartisan 31-1 vote on Monday, Senate Resolution 16 (PDF) bans state agencies, officials, and corporations from giving any material support, participation or assistance to any federal agency to collect electronic or metadata — including emails and text messages — of any person unless a warrant is issued that specifically describes the person, place and thing to be searched or seized.

 Sen. Ted Lieu, who co-authored SR 16 with Assemblyman Joel Anderson (R-San Diego), said the legislation comes in response to recent revelations of the NSA’s “massive phone and internet records collection program on Americans.”

“The NSA is violating our Constitutional rights on a daily basis by doing a blanket search-and-seizure of all our phone records of every American for the last several years, and I want to put a stop to that,” Lieu said...