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NSA Building $860 Million Data Center In Maryland
1sockchuck writes "As its current data collection makes headlines, the National Security Agency is continuing to expand its data storage and processing capabilities. The agency recently broke ground on an $860 million data center at Fort Meade, Maryland that will span more than 600,000 square feet. The project will provide additional IT capacity beyond the NSA's controversial Utah data center. The new facility will be supported by 60 megawatts of power and use both air-cooled and liquid-cooled equipment."
And they still can't get FIRST POST!
Will it run on Oracle ?
When is Google going to announce that it's also building a new data center in Fort Meade, Maryland? The NSA and Google data centers tend to be built in pairs.
burn this whole thing to the ground for the greater good of humanity.
Cry me a river. Regardless of how much lip service is given to the current fiscal pain the gov is shouldering there is always a revenue source for pet projects and nothing returned to their source of funds (us taxpayers).
I suspect that 30 years from now, the longtime CEO of Sun Microsystems will be remembered mostly for having said "You have zero privacy now. Get over it" way back in the 1990s, when people were just starting to raise concerns over what Internet companies were doing.
of the price of "freedom"
"logging machine"...
Al Qaeda buying $0.86 worth of postage, and getting virtually tamper-proof communication with, one-time-pads and a whole bunch of other stuff that you get when avoiding electronic systems known to be compromised. Just sayin'.
that somebody is going to be backing up the internet! ;-)
Now I won't have to go through the trouble of backing up any of my e-mail!
...where do I get a nice tinfoil hat?
It's not paranoia if it's out in the news.....
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
Your comment has been recorded. I mean, all this surveylance needs data centers to store and process it.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
It's become clear that the federal government no longer serves the interests of the people.
Does anyone have suggestions for fixing the problem?
Whenever some "government done did wrong again" article comes up, the comments are all non-constructive: blithe unconcern, fatalism, pessimism, and so on.
What constructive actions can be taken, and how can the people be encouraged to support these actions?
My one idea: If people could band together and agree to vote out the incumbent (senator, representative, president) whenever one of these incidents crop up, there would be incentive for politicians to better serve the people in order to continue in office. This would mean giving up party loyalty and the idea of "lessor of two evils", which a lot of people won't do. Some congressional elections are quite close, so 2,000 or so petitioners might be enough to swing a future election.
(And no, replies of "you won't accomplish anything because of this reason" are not constructive.)
An NSA spooks person said the data center will pay for itself via a custom ASIC super computer that will help generate money for the agency by surpassing 51% of the existing CPU power of the BitCoin network.....
How many Libraries of Congress can it store?
They have to store all of our phone conversations somewhere.
Someday in the future:
The NSA can record all communications. They use back-scatter X-ray and medical imaging to read all physical mail correspondence (honey, have you notice the mail delivery has been slower lately?). They know how the unpublished Stephen King novel ends (and begins). And of course all electronic communications are captured. And your phone calls, got it.
But their saving grace is their Public Service Announcement:
Yes, the TSA may be collecting everything, but this isn't Total Information Awareness. We have the Total Information part covered, but we're having a hard time with the Awareness part. So don't worry, be happy.
BlameBillCosby.com
So do something about it, otherwise bend over and
take it up the ass like you have been most of
your miserable useless loser life.
I assume you must be either a failing agent provocateur or a nitwit.
Benjamin Franklin said Americans had a republic, if they could keep it.
This is the time work on keeping it by:
- Letters to congress put in the post box
- Voting for a change of representation at the ballot box
- Some time on the soap box.
- Some government employees sitting in front of the jury box.
Suggested topics:
- IRS suppression of legitimate peaceful political opposition groups
- IRS suppression of legitimate peaceful religous groups
- Possible involvement by the FBI, EPA, and OSHA in the above
- IRS seizure of 60,000,000 medical records they are not entitled to in breach of the 4th Amendment
- Unprecedented Justice Department investigation of reporters
- Stonewalling by government officials before congress and refusing to turn over documents
- Attempts by the administration to disarm the public by outlawing weapons seldom used to commit crimes - semiautomatic rifles
- The very wide dragnet by the NSA when considered with the above
Slashdot has had stories on much of that recently. Search for IRS, or AP, etc.
It is legitimate for the NSA to monitor people in direct communication with terrorist groups, and other terrorists*. But this, considered in light of the above is cause for concern. Congress better be doing some good oversight.
* Genuine terrorists trying to bomb, shoot, poison or otherwise kill innocent people, typically in large numbers, with a very broad understanding of innocent.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
All the resources which are devoted to maintaining power over
US citizens and the locations in other countries which have
become valuable to US-based corporations will be the downfall
of the US.
It happened to the UK, and it happened to Rome, and it will
happen to the US too.
Just wait and see.
No matter what you had in mind, you would only encourage more of this sort of thing.
The problem is much, much larger than a data center. It isn't even confined to the federal government. The problem is a complacent populace, which includes me and you, unless you're actually outraged enough to take some time off work and protest. I know I can't afford that shit.
And that's the real problem. We're geeks who generally care about stuff like privacy, whereas the general populace is on Facebook. But even we're not getting off our asses to do anything. Hell, even here, Richard Stallman and Julian Assange are more often than not ridiculed and slandered.
Unemployed workers have no lobbyists. The security industry does.
What could they possibly need a data center that big for?
"surveylance". I like that term.
When you're collecting information on as broad a scale as the Verizon incident, it does come closer to surveying than it does to traditional surveillance.
There's no cure for this kind of blatant stupidity.
Please.. Cut Funding to the NSA...
This makes sense considering the extent of data collection in what appears to be a leak from a Verizon employee on all caller data from all calls made in the US. Since we can assume that all carriers have received similar secret orders to turn over all customer data they would need to expand their data processing capability.
And they'll use it to "lance" their own citizens...
Congress can always cut off funds if it turns out to be bad. I don't think I can think of something less useful and more destructive than truck bomb attacks at this point. If you want a republic, congress needs engage in close oversight of what is going on for this sort of activity. It might, might be legitimate, but it is darned suspicious.
There is no good way of predicting what would come next if the republic falls. Getting something better isn't likely. Much worse after a long period of suffering and destruction is what is likely.
When the people inform their legislators, good things can happen. Start writing and calling.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
There is no oversight for the warrantless stuff. That was the big scam. Previously they could, in an emergency, eavesdrop and get permission from the FISA court later (which sometimes would be denied, even Clinton had stuff denied) but at least it was tracked and recorded for later Congressional review.
This...this is just bullshit. There is no excuse for not even have cursory court review after the fact.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
What a joke. What a waste of money. This is all to scan everyone emails and phone records.
Republicans and Democrats hand in hand.
The problem is a complacent populace, which includes me and you, unless you're actually outraged enough to take some time off work and protest. I know I can't afford that shit. . . . But even we're not getting off our asses to do anything.
Stay on your butt and write letters to your representatives, or call, although I understand letters are better. Do that often. That gets their attention. They will probably never see you holding a protest sign.
Be polite. Be professional. Be clear.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
I thought that the US was in debt so far that they're defaulting on the bonds they sold to China? And the government has 860 million to throw around just to find out where their citizens are eating lunch?
It's amazing that this data centre is worth more to the US government that financial liquidity.
Your bigotry sickens me.
So let's just buy a new one and store everything indefinately (for at least 200 years) - every phone call, every email, every communication of all types, and all that video footage from our hundreds of satellites and drones and cameras in the country... Privacy is gone and will never come back.
"The administration has now lost all credibility. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it. That is one reason we have long argued that the Patriot Act, enacted in the heat of fear after the 9/11 attacks by members of Congress who mostly had not even read it, was reckless in its assignment of unnecessary and overbroad surveillance powers." New York Times Editorial, June 6, 2013
I drive by this ever day to and from work. There is a huge construction entrance off the highway... Nice to finally know what's going there.
When did it become trolling to state the obvious truth? Oh right been that way for a while now.
Surely (not Shirley) the NSA themselves are keenly aware that their facilities are at the core of US military and governmental power? Given how things function with "cumbersome" topics that's probably why the troll moderator thinks the rest of us aren't meant to acknowledge such a fact openly. The only remaining question is then whether said troll moderator did it for pay or due to indoctrination --either way the rest of us pays.
Sure if you want to mindlessly kill "insignificant" people rather than kill power there might be other targets that in particular are much more suitable to the ordinarily insane and deeply inbred "religion of piss" people^W blatte, but if there was any sliver of truth to their bizarre ramblings on motivation and world domination this is the kind of stuff they would target rather than people out for a run in the streets or commuting to work or drinking themselves senseless in a benign and blessed hindu environment (Bali is hindu).
So are blatte really that stupid? Or are they being used? Jews, socialists, "elite" or <_insert_whatever_here_>? All of the above? Who cares!
I'm a white northern European and like most nerdy or geeky people originally defaulted to being pretty much a fan of the NSA (and the US) and would be perfectly happy with them as long as they stayed within the spirit of the US constitution (which by the way is universal in nature; it encompasses all who adhere to its ideals) --so sadly I guess I now have to downgrade my opinion of them yet again, the same goes for a lot of outright treasonous governments and organisations in the west these days-- however the parent poster should be modded informative and insightful regardless of personal opinions pro or con. //rant mode off
where the @#^( are they getting this much electricity? are there secret nuclear power plants on the east coast?
If I could walk that way I wouldnt need cologne.
Ha! My spelling mistake.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
Wow - good eyes! I'll remember that. (Thanks)
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
"Likewise, even United States three-letter agencies like the NSA and the CIA, as well as their foreign counterparts, are becoming ironic institutions in many ways. Despite probably having more computing power per square foot than any other place in the world, they seem not to have thought much about the implications of all that computer power and organized information to transform the world into a place of abundance for all. Cheap computing makes possible just about cheap everything else, as does the ability to make better designs through shared computing. I discuss that at length here: http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html
There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all."
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
We need to change how we elect our officials and how campaigns are funded and how people lobby. That is at the root of the issue. If you want I can come back and post a link for you to Larry Lestigs TED talk about Lester Land. Its on Elections. Its fairly easy to google. It breaks down the issue very well. Than the next step is to fix our governments regulatory agencies and make them more democratic. This has been broken since the 1700's and needs to be updated for modern issues. I am not advocating no regulations. The next step is to address these symptoms of the broke system which you have listed.
We may need to do all of that include address your listed issues at the same time.
and don't use email. A letter with an address on it proves that you are in their district and may be voting for someone else if they don't do the right thing. An email could be from anyone.
Heh. I don't think you can call the Tea Party complacent.
The NSA expects to hire enough assholes willing to do what the NSA does.
All human institutions are self serving - including (especially?) Government. As such any third party who managed to gain office would be corrupted nearly immediately, or rendered ineffective by the rest of the organization.
There is only one solution to this problem - LESS Government. And I see only one possible way to accomplish this - deprive the Government of revenue. Starve the beast to to speak.
[A]nd don't use email. A letter with an address on it proves that you are in their district and may be voting for someone else if they don't do the right thing. An email could be from anyone.
I don't think it makes much difference what delivery scheme you use, so long as you're reachable. I believe that little if any correspondence gets fully read (and certainly not by the actual person it's addressed to), just scanned for the issue and position ("yea"/"nay") and sometimes a reply-to address. Hell, I even received a reply after using a fax-form provided on ACLU's website, which took me about thirty seconds to fill out and submit. However, every reply I've ever received from an elected representative/official consisted of informing me that my position or opinion was "wrong," and that the elected person was "right."
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
http://rt.com/usa/confirmed-nsa-phone-records-330/
I actually once got a Lukewarm response. I wasn't sure if an aid wrote it or the official did. It was about new rules before the SOPA act. Something to do with courts being able to order domains blocked without going to a judge. I politely explained that its not a corporations place to make such calls and that it belongs in the governments hands. Namely the courts. And that I was disappointed at the increasingly corporate favoritism the government was showing in regards to IP law. I think a lot of people probably had a similar viewpoint when they emailed. And it was through an EFF website form as well. Though I cut out their default message and wrote my own.
I can guarantee it wasn't perfect considering my writing ability. I think on really big issues that net them a large response congress listens more.
What a brilliant rebuttal. So convincing.
They will be waiting some time for Butterfly Labs to ship the kit needed to fill it.
Seems like they're building a precrime unit... As any decent terrorist knows, regular communications are intercepted and everything may be bugged, so they communicate in other ways. I mean, the Boston bombers for instance were clearly coordinating their attack and yet law enforcement was not aware of the attack prior to the attack itself, so they successfully hid from the NSA, FBI etc.
So the only way is to analyze communication leading up to the radicalization to predict if and when a terrorist is born. That's precrime with the data mining clusters replacing the oracles.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
Through counter intelligence measures, it will be possible to pinpoint potential trouble makers and neutralize them.
Brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
Oh, I can call them complacent on the National Security State. Just not one of their issues until they imagined themselves a target of it.
Yes, imagined. The IRS asked them to fill out some forms. That's got very little to do with all the surveillance of mosques and so forth by people actually hunting terrorists and everything to do with the IRS looking out for a few thousand in loose change.
You can bet if the IRS were subjecting mosques to all kinds of close examination and removing the tax-free status from various Muslim charities, the Tea Party would be expending zero effort to ensure their civil rights.
if the republic falls.
It has failed long ago my friend... time to realize this.
Yes, let's ignore reality and imagine a hypothetical.
You're welcome. On a basic income, one reason for a basic income versus increasing the minimum wage is that it ensures purchasing power is distributed somewhat evenly across a society. The market only hears the needs of people with money. But the value of most human labor is declining relative to capital used for automation (especially AI and robotics), as has been long predicted (like in "The Triple Revolution" memorandum from 1964).
It's true that an increased minimum wage (similar to say Denmark) would help ensure more of productivity gains go to workers -- except that it also increases the financial pressure to automate to get rid of workers. So, higher wages becomes an economic death spiral for most workers when robotics is rapidly improving. As work that can't be easily automated becomes more abstract, more precise, or more demanding, fewer people have the skills and talent to do it well, contributing to a growing rich/poor divide.
Automation also does no have to completely replace workers to have this effect -- if automation enables one person do the work of two, then there is one worker who can be fired. There will only be a job for that fired worker if the economy expands -- but expanding the economy has probably (in the USA) long passed the point of diminishing returns, as people sicken from supersized meals, lose human community by spending time interacting with more stuff, and so on. And in any case, the exponential potential of automation seems to be increasing faster than economic growth, so even as the economy expands, it is not clear humans are needed to do much more work. The US GDP has grown by about 33% over the past decade while the work force has stayed essentially the same,
Supporting evidence for all that here:
http://pdfernhout.net/beyond-a-jobless-recovery-knol.html
Also, a basic income, which goes to every citizen without conditions, is somewhat different from a guaranteed minimum income which is an income supplement to ensure someone has a certain amount of income as a minimum. With a basic income, there is no disincentive to work, contrasted with the way there is a disincentive with a guaranteed minimum income (where you lose some of the subsidy for every dollar you earn). With a basic income, there is no need to monitor how money much everyone makes in order to decide how to supplement -- so there is less bureaucracy and no possibility for cheating by hiding income since income does not matter in deciding who gets it, A basic income acknowledges that as "property" rights enclose the land, the average citizen should still get some right to the fruits of the land even if they don't own it, because the original conversion of land to individual ownership is in some sense a theft from the commons.
A basic income (as a "social credit") also acknowledges that most of what makes possible some people to be so productive is the ideas in the common cultural heritage of all humans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit
More on a basic income:
http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html
But these issues all are interlinked. If people had better representation in Congress, as basic income would be more likely to get passed (contrast with Germany which is moving more towards one). Something like it (more like a guaranteed minimum income) did pass the House under President Nixon, but did not pass the Senate. If people had better communications systems, then maybe they would be able to work out the details of the transition better. If people had a basic income, they would have more time for lobbying Congress (whether about human rights at home or preventing US foolishness abroad) and writing free communications software.
For example, my own effort towards a FOSS social semantic desktop and public intelligence tools has mostly stalled with the
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.