Good morning.
Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 43. Sunrise is 6:52 and sunset is 7:10 for 12 hours 18 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 26 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1965, NASA launches Gemini 3, the United States’ first two-man space flight (crew: Gus Grissom and John Young).
This libertarian blogger has contended for minimal state regulation of data centers — local communities should decide what’s best for them, proposal by proposal. What municipalities should not do, however, is sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) with companies proposing data centers. If local communities are to decide for themselves, then residents need plentiful information about data center proposals. Microsoft now acknowledges that community need:
Microsoft announced last week it would stop signing nondisclosure agreements that keep its data center proposals secret, a move that received praise from open government advocates.
Less attention was paid to the other party to those NDAs: local governments.
“Hopefully, the industry follows,” said Wisconsin state Rep. Clint Moses, R-Menomonie, where the city signed an NDA, then put a proposed data center on hold. Microsoft “just realized that it’s not a successful formula when you come into a community under darkness.”
Moses said a bill he introduced to ban data center NDAs, which stalled in the Legislature, is still needed to prevent local governments from signing the agreements. If local officials sign them, “hopefully voters will remember it and hold them accountable,” he said.
Microsoft did not sign NDAs in the Racine County communities of Mount Pleasant, where a multibillion-dollar data center complex is under construction, or in Caledonia, where it withdrew a data center proposal amid community opposition. But its announcement comes at a time of public backlash against data centers proposed in Wisconsin.
The company said its new position on NDAs is an effort toward transparency “as we continue to build trust with the communities around the world in which we operate, and that it would work with local governments to terminate current NDAs. Microsoft has one in Kenosha, where a data center is proposed.
See Tom Kertscher, Local data center critics praise Microsoft’s pledge to stop using NDAs, but remain skeptical, Wisconsin Watch, March 23, 2026.
Legislation banning NDAs with data center companies — or local governments — wouldn’t be necessary if each party understood that this level of secrecy is understandably and rightly objectionable to residents in these communities.
It would be far better if we lived in conditions where no company and no local government even considered the possibility of a non-disclosure agreement for a data center. We do not live in those conditions, although Microsoft’s announcement, if sincere, might move other companies to accept conditions of open and transparent government over these centers.
Bison get a bronze tribute for America’s 250th birthday: