Editor’s Note: Thank you to Laura Ebke of NE Campaign for Liberty for alerting us to these issues.

The Nebraska Campaign for Liberty’s Legislative Watch group “NebraskaLiberty’s Unicam Watch” has been busy reading bills introduced in this session and have identified two bills in particular—both carryovers from the last session—which will likely come to a Final Reading vote later this week (Friday afternoon) or early next week (Monday), which raise serious concerns for us.

Those bills are LB 550, which raises serious questions about the power of the National Guard as a police force, and LB 261, which allows retailers to scan identifying information from your drivers’ license.  Concerns regarding these bill can be found here (for LB 550) and here (for LB 261). Be sure to read the comments attached to LB 550, especially.

Because Campaign for Liberty had such good luck with members and friends responding last year when they were trying to get our Congressmen and Senators to sponsor the Audit the Fed bill, they are calling on Grassroots in Nebraska members to help “flex some liberty muscle” with our state senators.  The truth is that most of the senators seldom hear from “regular folks”, and most of what they hear is through groups. If you can get 6-10 (or more) to call your senator on these two bills, we can probably turn some votes around (we have been told that with respect to LB 261, especially, there is significant movement in the direction of passing it).

So, since we don’t know for sure when the bill will be brought to the floor, I would propose a “calling bomb” to the State Legislature on the morning of Friday, Febuary 5. Please call your state legislator at that time or during the afternoon if that time doesn’t work for you. If you can’t call, send an e-mail at the same time (or send e-mails to YOUR legislator and to others in your neighborhood). Tell them that you are VERY concerned about the potential for civil liberties abuses in LB 550, and the potential for a loss of privacy in LB 261. And tell them that you expect them to vote NO on Final Reading (this will probably happen this Friday afternoon). If your legislator is up for re-election this year, he/she may be especially sensitive to calls from constituents right now. If you don’t know who your senator is, you can go here, type your address and/or zip code in on the map search box at the bottom of the map, and your legislator’s name will pop up; click the “more information” link, and you’ll go to the home page which will provide both the phone number and e-mail address.

As far as Lincoln/Lancaster County senators go, we have the impression that Senator Colby Coash will be voting FOR both LB 550 and LB 261  Senator Fulton is planning on voting FOR LB 550 because he thinks that it won’t change anything; our question is “why have the bill then?”

Thanks in advance for your help on this. We need to shake our state senators up and let them know that we are watching!  Please pass this message around—if everyone on this list would call or e-mail their senator, and then pass this one to one or two friends to do the same, the legislature wouldn’t know what hit it. We will continue to monitor legislation and try to pick out some which would lend themselves well to grassroots action.