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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."
Pfft. We all know you're a double agent, Anonymous Coward. How else can you explain your schizophrenic posting history?!
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
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.
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).
of the price of "freedom"
"logging machine"...
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.
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.)
Who needs a restore function? You can restore the entire internet with a camera and a cat.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
How many Libraries of Congress can it store?
You can extrapolate every conceivable point in every conceivable universe from the brownian motion in a very hot cup of tea, restoring the Internet should be trivial; although it may not be quite as you left it.
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. ~ Douglas Adams
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
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
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
burn this whole thing to the ground for the greater good of humanity.
Why? Wouldn't it be an even greater good to hand it over to NASA or NIST?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
They are going to consolidate all of the TOR exit nodes in one data center.
Have gnu, will travel.
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.
[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
burn this whole thing to the ground for the greater good of humanity.
Why? Wouldn't it be an even greater good to hand it over to NASA or NIST?
Even if a band of marauding Slashdotters (or whoever) managed to successfully besiege that building and oust the NSA, do you really believe that NASA or NIST would accept an invitation to come and set up shop there?
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
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.
Please.. Cut Funding to the NSA...
That's harder than you might think: NSA's current budget is $[REDACTED]; $[REDACTED] - $860M still equals $[REDACTED].
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
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) --
This is where Americans go to work when the private sector is flooded with H1B's.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
If you are referring to the entrance off RT 32, I suspect that is the new power plant.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
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.