This is a very good step in the right direction because right now, across the country, law enforcement routinely purchases information on individuals it would otherwise need a warrant to obtain.
What does that mean? In every state other than Montana, if police want to know where you have been, rather than presenting evidence and sending a warrant signed by a judge to a company like Verizon or Google to get your geolocation data for a particular set of time, they only need to buy that same data from data brokers. In other words, all the location data apps on your phone collect —sometimes recording your exact location every few minutes—is just sitting for sale on the open market. And police routinely take that as an opportunity to skirt your Fourth Amendment rights.
To be fair, Montana has a year over year increase in child abuse claims. So they probably don’t want more evidence.
The bigger problem is that this data broker business is actually still legal.
By all means, such businesses need to be made illegal, shut down, and the data wiped.
And the C-levels’ homes bulldozed and their fields salted.
While the bulldozer driver conveniently forgot to inform the inhabitants?
More data showing that Montana might look deep red, but will make a surprise progressive move from time to time.
Western mintana’s vibe has always felt very “If ya ain’t fuckin with my shit or anyone else’s shit then rock on.”
Well no……. They don’t care if you’re fucking with anyone else’s shit. Just their own.
Montana has several anti-trans laws and prohibits drag performers from reading books to kids.
Montana is red as fuck. They just don’t want anyone looking into them because they would probably go to jail.
In fact, Montana has a growing issue of child abuse, year over year.
Sick fucks.
https://www.cwla.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Montana-Fact-Sheet-2022.pdf
It has the same problem eastern Washington has, proximity to Idaho, which is a special flavor of inbred Nazi, plus the downside of bordering other fairly… weird states, like Wyoming. I drove from western Washington to Illinois two years back, with hot pink hair, and I had to cover my hair in Montana because I genuinely felt unsafe, I’m not trans, just a cis woman with pink hair and even that got me all sorts of nasty stares and comments. There’s a strong live and let live culture too, but you’re right, it’s being actively strangled out at this point.
I drove through the same area again just last week, but only to Boulder and back, with my natural brown hair and had a significantly more friendly visit… jokes on them I’m SO much more left now that I was two years ago despite the signs
the same problem eastern Washington has
Another problem is that it’s a colony of Utah. On the wrong side of the Cascades, the Saints have way too much influence.
even that got me all sorts of nasty stares and comments
I have the opposite problem. I’m a fairly large, muscular old man with a shaved head and a broken nose. They always assume I’m one of them, and overshare their racist MAGA bullshit.
Montana went to Bernie at least once
