Innocent Or Not, the NSA Is Watching You

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Wired: "Under construction by contractors with top-secret clearances, the blandly named Utah Data Center is being built for the National Security Agency. A project of immense secrecy, it is the final piece in a complex puzzle assembled over the past decade. Its purpose: to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world's communications as they zap down from satellites and zip through the underground and undersea cables of international, foreign, and domestic networks. The heavily fortified $2 billion center should be up and running in September 2013. Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails — parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital 'pocket litter.' It is, in some measure, the realization of the 'total information awareness' program created during the first term of the Bush administration — an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans' privacy."

Comments

End the USA

[Anonymous Coward]

It's time for the revolution. Kill the pigs in charge.

Re:End the USA

[Cyberblah]

Oh, you're so getting on the NSA's list for that.

Re:End the USA

[hairyfeet]

Actually its been real for quite a long time, they just used the classic "use it against a bad guy and the populace won't scream..until its too late" trick and it worked quite well. There are two men currently in prison for thoughtcrime, there are probably more but there are at least two that i know of. 1 is the guy that wrote the 'pro pedo" book, this book is nothing but his thoughts on the subject, no pictures, no "hey you should go out and rape kids" incitement, just his thoughts written down, now he's in prison...thoughtcrime. The other wrote down his fantasies of having sex with 14 year old girls on the advice of his therapist who wanted him to write down his fantasies in detail so they could break them down in therapy, now he is in prison too. again no pictures, no evidence that he actually did anything other than write his thoughts down...thoughtcrime.

It never ceases to amaze me how much of the populace will let any trully horrific law through or allow virtually any crushing of our civil liberties as long as you make sure the FIRST few targets are of a group they hate, be it communists, racists, terrorists, pedos, etc. So sad that so many years after "first they came for the communists" was written so many still don't understand that this is a classic tactic, use the power against someone that nobody will defend and then by the time they use it on you its been part of the system so long nobody balks.

We have seen the enemy...and it is us. Too many simply won't stand up if the target is someone they can't stand so that all of this horrible shit can seep into the system and eventually be used against us all. Once upon a time the NSA was mainly tasked with rooting out foreign spies which at the time was a real and credible threat...now they are used against us. nobody watched them, or kept them in check, or complained when their powers grew, so here we are.

Re:End the USA

[roman_mir]

No question about it.

Of-course this 'article' is also a piece of propaganda designed for intimidation.

In the former USSR the people just assumed that KGB had nearly infinite powers, this way people lived in fear and were easily turned into 'seksots' - secret collaborator or secret agent.

It was done consciously this way, to ensure everybody is constantly assuming that everybody else is a 'seksot' and to make sure people don't trust each other and behave according to what is expected from them. Of-course there were real atrocities committed, and that helped plenty to create the atmosphere of fear.

I don't have reasons to doubt that NSA is working on projects like this, of-course I assume that the totality of the information that is released is bullshit, but there is something there that is real. Of-course they want every word that anybody ever recorded and transmitted to anybody - this is power of-course.

The only correct solution to this is to stop government from doing this any further and to take apart what they have done already, for this everybody who is in power right now must be removed from it (including the SCOTUS, it's crap) and new people must be put there who must be forced to obey the Constitution.

You must understand that once you allow the government to go beyond any of the authorised powers (Article 1, Section 8), you will have nothing protecting you at all from crap like this, but also from much worse.

NDAA with indefinite detentions, extra-judicial killings, destruction of all rights, property rights, business rights, complete control of what you do.

Income taxes are nothing compared to all the other stuff they do, at least for income taxes they amended the Constitution.

When did they amend the Constitution to build this NSA data centre to spy on all people, completely destroying presumption of innocence, abolishing the idea of the illegality of search without warrant, murdering people based on what POTUS wants?

Is the 2nd amendment going to be the last line of defence from total tyranny? I don't know, it may be not enough.

Re:End the USA

[Stormthirst]

Unfortunately they rarely do use it for such mundane things as catching murderers and child molesters. Sure - they'll catch a few to show how benign such a system is. But then they'll start using it on ordinary citizens who might for example want to make some political changes that they don't like. Or they'll sell the information to private companies who use it to gain an advantage over their competitors. The possibilities are endless.

Re:End the USA

[Fjandr]

Yeah, an example of that is the recent (by recent, sometime in the last couple years) conviction of a defense lawyer for "structuring." http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/local&id=7056927

For anyone unfamiliar with the term, it's the depositing of money into an account in such a way as to avoid triggering mandatory transaction reporting for banks. It's intended as a tack-on charge for money laundering when another crime has been committed. In this case, the lawyer did nothing wrong other than "structure" his deposits. The money was earned legally and all taxes had been paid on it. He even got to keep the money after being convicted, because it was earned legally and taxes had been paid on it. He committed no crime, but because his deposits were designed to not trigger mandatory reporting requirements from the bank, he now has a criminal record.

Re:End the USA

[Anonymous Coward]

european and eastern governments are no better than the US.

Some European and Eastern governments are no better than the US.
Most European and some Eastern governments are better than the US, whatever measurements you use to define "better" (there exist a lot of international human-rights/life-quality/press-freedom/democracy/crime/health/IQ et c. indices and the same countries usually top most of them, US is usually placed somewhere in the middle (if it is not an index constructed with the sole purpose to show how "good" US is, it is easy to identify those, they have to change their methods of measurement every other year)). Almost all countries around the world behave better towards people living in other countries (even China (the atrocities committed in Tibet is nothing compared to what US troupes does abroad, and China only occupy one region outside China, it doesn't invade a lot of new regions every year like USA (and Tibet was not a very nice place to live for most inhabitants even before the Chinese occupation))), the exceptions being perhaps Israel and Russia.

If you look at Northern Europe (sans Great Britain, i.e. Scandinavia, Netherlands, Germany et c., even France if you fancy), all countries there are much "better" then US, both to live in and in their relations towards other countries. [Except, perhaps, if you consider owning and carrying weapons designed to kill people a basic human right. But both Sweden and Finland have more privately owned fire arms per capita then US, except they are made for hunting animals and are not very good for killing or maiming people, hunting being the most popular hobby in most regions of those countries]

The countries in Northern Europe practise the 20th century kind of democracy, and they are a lot "better" then the 18th century kind of democracies, the model of democracy practised in USA. They may be surpassed by some new 21th century democracy model (there are a lot of experiments in government models going on today in societies in South Americas, the Baltics and the Middle East, perhaps they lead to even better modes of Democracy), but for now, they are as good as it gets.

Myself, I live in Sweden, one of those countries that usually are ranked among the best in different human life quality indexes. I'm highly critical towards the Swedish government and society, and very active in actions trying to make Sweden a better place to live. If you heard or read my criticism of the Swedish society, you could get the impression that it is hell on earth. Except it is not, my criticism i aimed at making Sweden better, I'm very well aware that compared to most countries around the world (including USA) it is almost a paradise. Heck, I couldn't even do most of the things (methods of protests et c.) I have the right to do Sweden in most countries outside Northern Europe, including USA.

Re:End the USA

[Plugh]

There's no need to go this far off the deep end, just yet. Fortunately, thousands of people who are opposed to over-intrusive government are getting together and actually doing something about it ... and getting results!

Re:End the USA

[TheRaven64]

Then again... "intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world's communications" is ok just as long as it does not affect US citizens?

The real problem with this line of reasoning (which is very common in the USA - rights are only for citizens) is that it opens you up to easy abuses. The NSA spies on British citizens, GCHQ spies on US citizens, and both can say 'we don't spy on our own people!'. Of course, they share data when something interesting crops up...

You are not innocent

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no innocent citizens in the modern police state.

Re:You are not innocent

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

I try to tell people that the primary election is the only election that really matters, and no one seems to care.

Re:You are not innocent

[malilo]

It's what the anarchists used to say: "If elections could change your life, they would be illegal."

Not so deep in the desert

[mycroft16]

I love that the magazine cover says "Deep in the Utah desert." It isn't. It is literally in the middle of the city growth centers. I've been watching them build this since they broke ground. It is a mere 15 minute drive from my house and I live in suburbia. The center sits less than 1 mile off I-15 between Salt Lake City and Utah County. BYU is 30 minutes away from it. There is a water park 10 minutes up the road. They aren't hiding this thing at all. It is in plain sight. It sits up on the side of the hill across the Jordan river valley. And yes, it is freaking massive.

Re:Not so deep in the desert

[dwillden]

Don't be an idiot. It's not "just a building" It's a massive complex of big buildings with very thick walls. And armed 24 hour security that even harasses locals watching deer herds in the area (as they've been doing for years). There is no other construction project anywhere near this size anywhere else in the state. I too live and work close to it, and there is no doubt as to what is being built. You simply do not understand the scale of what we are talking about.

Further the Wired account includes illustrations from the Army Corps of Engineers giving the layout (some buildings identified, others not) and it matches every other source of info.

You are taking your paranoia too far. Yes this is a massive NSA Data (and who knows what else) center. It will very likely infringe upon at least a few citizens civil liberties. But there is no question that it is what it is, and that is where it is being built. Something this scale couldn't be easily hidden anyway. It's power requirements are too big to hide in the desert. They had to build a power substation off the main high tension lines just for this facility.

On another note, why did it take this long to hit /.? The article hit the web nearly a month ago, I got my physical copy of wired with the article nearly two weeks ago.

Location of the Utah Data Center

[mycroft16]

For those interested, here is a google map of the location they are building this. http://maps.google.com/maps?q=40.430485,-111.934547&num=1&t=h&z=14

Unlimited back ups

[mrbester]

At least I don't have to back up my data anymore. Restoring it might be a problem...

Re:Innocent?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Give me six lines written by the most honest man, and I will find something there to hang him."

The idea's not new. It's just that the period of social democracy in Europe and liberal democracy in America has come to an end, and the West is creeping back to an imperialist Britain of the nineteenth century with some more equal than others under the law. Once we've crept back another 200 years, of course, the very technology we created to liberate ourselves will be used to stop us before we think of setting a foot wrong.

And we'll applaud, just as we'll always applaud our destruction. Some of us will applaud it because we have stuck a "free market" label on it and have faith that it'll all work out; others will applaud it because we have stuck a "communist" label on it and feel assured that nothing can go wrong; so it is for "Jesus", "Mohammed" and every religion in between. Just occasionally, someone will stand up and ask what effect something has on the people living right now - but those people are dismissed by rulers who no longer have to live in the real world, cheerled by those useful idiots who aspire to leave it too.

Re:Has nothing to do with "hate" or "like"

[daveschroeder]

Actually, the US cannot use allies' intelligence capabilities as a vehicle to sidestep its own laws and directives prohibiting surveillance of US Persons without a warrant. I know some people believe that this is what is happening, but that is neither the purpose nor intent of intelligence sharing between the US and its allies.