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NSA Is Building a New Datacenter In San Antonio
An anonymous reader writes in with an article from a Texas paper on the NSA's new facility in San Antonio. "America's top spy agency has taken over the former Sony microchip plant and is transforming it into a new data-mining headquarters... where billions of electronic communications will be sifted in the agency's mission to identify terrorist threats. ... [Author James] Bamford writes about how NSA and Microsoft had both been eyeing San Antonio for years because it has the cheapest electricity in Texas, and the state has its own power grid, making it less vulnerable to power outages on the national grid. He notes that it seemed the NSA wanted assurance Microsoft would be here, too, before making a final commitment, due to the advantages of 'having their miners virtually next door to the mother lode of data centers.' The new NSA facility is just a few miles from Microsoft's data center of the same size. Bamford says that under current law, NSA could gain access to Microsoft's stored data without even a warrant, but merely a fiber-optic cable." The article mentions the NRC report concluding that data mining is ineffective as a tactic against terrorism, which we discussed a couple of months back.
I have been making a slow but steady move away from Windows to Linux for a host of reasons. I have also made a decision to NOT buy anything of Sony. It's all in the things we all buy and use everyday. I find it interesting that people will complain about things like this and then turn around and support it by purchasing and using all those things that help to create and expand it all. I know there is no way to stop it or to prevent it. But, there is no reason to willing hand over more power to it. This is part (not all, but part) of the reason I do not use myspace or facebook. I will not buy an Ipod or Iphone. I do not use hotmail and I think I'm starting to end my use of yahoo. I'd like to get away from Google, but it's too useful to me. What it all comes down to is in the way it's all done. The internet is a powerfull tool with many facets. Being a popular thing to do online is just not enough to justify doing when the reality of what it actually is sets in.