THANK YOU MARYLAND! HB311 passed! On to the Senate to protect our freedoms of association and assembly...

UPDATE:

In case you haven't been reading down the thread for updates, here's the news: Maryland House of Delegates BIll HB311, the Freedom of Association and Assembly Protection Act of 2009, passed the House of Delegates on March 24th. Great victory, DPers, but we aren't done yet...this has moved on to the Senate, where this is Senate Bill 266 with the same title. Currently this bill does *not* show up on the MD General Assembly website, but according to a staffer at Delegate Curt Anderson's office, this bill passed its first reading 45-0. No idea when a final vote is coming.

Scroll down the original post to find the link if you don't know who your state senators are, and call them to tell you support our freedoms of association and assembly! In the meantime, I will post an update when I discover S266 is coming up for a vote.

Thank you to everyone who supported this effort!

Original post follows:

This is in response to Liberty Belle's original post on Maryland HB311,the Freedom of Association and Assembly Protection Act of 2009, which was introduced in response to inappropriate surveillance by the Maryland State Police of peace activists and other dissidents. I got a legislative update-type email from Delegate Maggie McIntosh (43rd District, MD) today, and this is what she says about this bill:

"The last bill I'd like to give you an update on is House Bill 311, the Administration's bill for addressing the inappropriate surveillance activities by the State Police that targeted peaceful protest groups. I received numerous emails and phone calls urging me to support House Bill 182, which would have put strong limitations on the permissibility of surveillance by any law enforcement agencies in Maryland. Unfortunately, that bill was voted down in the Judiciary Committee, and never came to the floor of the House of Delegates where I could have supported it.

After H.B. 182 was given an unfavorable report, however, many of its provisions were amended into H.B. 311, such as the requirement of a written finding that a covert operation is justified, the applicability of the law to all law enforcement and not just the State Police, a prohibition on not just the unjustified collection but also maintenance of irrelevant information, a protection of citizen information request rights, and requirements for reporting results of the bill to the General Assembly. The bill is still not as far-reaching as H.B. 182 would have been, but it is certainly a step toward establishing the necessary explicit protections against any violations of our rights to peaceful protest, and if passed will give us a firm foundation upon to build yet stronger protections in the
sessions to come.":

This bill (HB311) needs to pass the Maryland House of Delegates before the end of the day on Monday, or it won't cross over to the Senate for consideration. I was on the phone today with staffers from both Maggie McIntosh and Anne Marie Doory's office (both are delegates from District 43) and they agree on this point. Anne Marie Doory's staffer also told me that there is a small chance that it could go the Rules Committee after Monday, and go to the MD Senate anyway--but again, our best bet is to act on this piece of legislation RIGHT NOW.

Here's the link to HB 311; please check to see if your delegate is listed:

http://mlis.state.md.us/2009rs/billfile/HB0311.htm

Don't know who your delegate is or how to contact him or her? Try this:

http://mdelect.net/

Take a moment and try to call your delegates...the General Assembly is in session today, tomorrow, and Monday. Neither of the staffers seemed to know exactly when this bill will be brought forward for consideration.

For more info, please take a look at Liberty Belle's original post:

http://www.dailypaul.com/node/86380

Thanks again to Liberty Belle for all your help and encouragement!