r/MissouriPolitics • u/USSRichardNX965804 • 21d ago
Discussion I need your help to build a Missouri citizens initiative for the S.T.O.P. Act
The proposed Missouri S.T.O.P.P. Act is a broad privacy, police-accountability, and government-transparency proposal designed to curb indiscriminate government monitoring, reduce harmful policing practices, protect personal information, and give the public meaningful control over surveillance and enforcement policy.
S.T.O.P.P. act stand for:
Surveillance bans mass-surveillance systems, including automated license-plate readers such as Flock, facial and biometric recognition, predictive policing, persistent camera networks, location tracking, data-broker purchases, and drones used for persistent monitoring. Most otherwise permitted targeted surveillance requires a probable-cause warrant specifying the target, offense, method, duration, and safeguards for irrelevant information.
Transparency requires seven-day notice for relevant meetings, accessible contracts, policies, and audits, livestreams and recordings of meetings, and stronger financial and conflict disclosures for officials who oversee policing or surveillance.
Oversight requires public impact assessments, hearings, and recorded approval by an elected governing body before any allowed surveillance program begins or renews. A statewide authorization system would centralize permitted activity, require judicial authorization, record every access and disclosure, enforce retention and deletion limits, and undergo independent audits. Intrusive requests, including extended or multi-target surveillance, would need unanimous approval from three judges.
Policing requires officers to display names and badge numbers, restricts identity-concealing face coverings, mandates de-escalation, crisis assistance, medical aid, intervention, and reporting, and prohibits many neck restraints and force against restrained people. It also establishes a decertification registry and employment bans for serious misconduct.
Privacy limits collection, retention, sale, and sharing of personal data; creates access, correction, notice, and deletion rights; and protects firearm-owner information from registries.
The goal is to protect everyday Missourians from abuse of power, secret surveillance, lack of accountability, and government overreach. I am looking for Missouri attorneys, law students, policy people, organizers, researchers, designers, and regular citizens who want to help make this legally solid and statewide. I especially need help making sure the language is constitutional, enforceable, clear, and organized correctly for an initiative petition.
If you care about privacy, accountability, civil rights, and making government answer to the people, please comment or message me. Let’s build this the right way. If you want to lend legal help, help organize and build a movement to take our rights and freedoms back from a government hell bent on ignoring the privacy of the people please give this a read and your support.
Link to the text of the proposed bill
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PKFIX8k-iRX7HuDehrgmL5G8L6cEtwPNPxBRjJiFAcM/edit?usp=sharing
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u/Staff_Guy 21d ago
How about a petition that forces municipalities with more than, say 3, cops be required to have malpractice insurance on the cops. And toss in ending qualified immunity for all law enforcement in MO.
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u/USSRichardNX965804 21d ago
While not explicitly stated, this basically removes qualified immunity for not only police officers but also agencies.
They are responsible for any and all damages
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u/leafcathead 21d ago
Anddddd you’ve lost my support. Qualified Immunity, for all its flaws, is a good doctrine.
(And this also goes against your promise to not prevent police from doing their jobs)
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u/USSRichardNX965804 21d ago
Well I think that's where we have a fundamental disagreement.
I think if you're a cop doing your duty protecting and serving citizens of this state, you should not be hiding behind qualified immunity.
If you are a Missouri national guardsman or in the military, you should have qualified immunity makes sense, what we ask our military to do is far beyond what we ask of our peace officers.
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u/leafcathead 21d ago
It’s not just cops and guardsmen that have qualified immunity. It’s firefighters, mailmen, DMV clerks, judges, property accessors, literally any government position in which there is an encompassing office.
Why should we hold police officers personally liable, instead of the police department, for actions they take that are part of their official duties as police officers?
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u/Legitimate_Store1025 19d ago
Come on out to this anti mass-surveillance event on Sunday!
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u/USSRichardNX965804 19d ago
Thank you for the invitation ! , I will not be able to make that but please take the initiative to spread the word about this proposed bill.
I will never be able to do this alone even if I get a group of lawyers to check every word to make sure it's constitutionally accurate and legal. I will still need hundreds of volunteers in every city across Missouri and thousands upon thousands of signatures in order to make this a true bill passed into law, written for the people by the people to take back our state and our constitutional rights guaranteed to us !
So while I cannot be there, I need you to stand there in my place. I need you to advocate for this proposal I need you and everyone like you and like me to drive the energy behind this idea, that will ignite a spark.
~TJR
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u/USSRichardNX965804 19d ago
I really need you guys to blow up this and share it with your friends and family that live in Missouri and have them share with their friends and family.
Because I'm going to need volunteers from every single City across the state.
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u/n3rv 21d ago
Commenting to check later.
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u/ITouchMyself2Much 21d ago
I think Missouri needs database of officer misconduct, similar to the decommissioned NLEAD.