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Utah Set To Exempt NSA Datacenter From Power Tax, After All
Nerval's Lobster writes "They may not all support what the NSA will do with its giant new datacenter in Bluffdale, but Utah officials do seem to agree on the value of having a world-class, $1.5 billion datacenter built in their territory. In general, they're for it, and are proving that by changing a law that would have added about $2.4 million in taxes to the datacenter's power bill—an addition that was an unpleasant surprise to NSA officials when they heard about it in May. A bill signed into law April 1 imposed a tax of up to 6 percent on electricity from Rocky Mountain Power, a requirement the NSA protested in an email to Utah Gov. Gary Herbert April 26. State tax agencies swear they informed the NSA about the impact of the law when it was still under debate; NSA officials denied knowing anything about it and complained that it would make Utah a less attractive site for the datacenter, which was only three to four months from completion at the time."
An indicator of NSA surveillance effectiveness?
Ladies and gentlemen, here are the guys whose job is information processing for the security of your nation...
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
Just to be fair the NSA is denying knowing a lot these days.
Well there's one we haven't heard before.
Even the federal government is looking at tax rates and making location decisions based around them. I suppose this makes a little sense to those who understand business and how they operate, but I bet it blows the mind of those who think it is a crime to subsidies business or that government can just print money and pay out the nose for their crap.
If only the NSA had been doing a better job spying on the Utah legislature that would have found out about this in advance.
"NSA officials denied knowing anything about it"
Imagine that.
They may be protesting, but don't be fooled into thinking they were going to move the billion dollar facility because of a $3 million tax. Utah should keep the tax money.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
Dont know much how the taxes are calculated. But, does avoid having to pay taxes also help remove the power consumption data from being public ?
If NSA wasn't recording everyone's mail and voice they wouldn't need this center. It could still be put to good use: Make it the replacement for the Yucca Mountain nuclear storage facility. The servers, switches, generators, office furniture, coffee pots, etc. could be vital shielding. One possible drawback: the spent fuel might object.
U.T.A.H = Ubiquitous Telephone Analysis Hub
Of course the officials know nothing. Why do you think they hire a bunch of lackeys? As a shield to the truth and as scapegoats.
They must be highly evolved.
Yea. we didn't know about it. We were too busy reading everyone's emails. Ignorance of the law is our excuse. Give us a tax break, which simply means that the average citizens pay more than the people who spy on them. The irony here is that they were only 3-4 months from completion, "AT THE TIME" and are less now. So it wasn't like they were going to leave the state, walk away from all of the money already spent, and let the citizens go without someone to spy on them. They would have paid the tax, they just didn't like it. Glad to know that everyone else there must like it. I guess the Utah state constitution doesn't have any sort of equal protection clause that would prevent giving this unfair treatment to some but not to others (mine does, but it is ignored when inconvenient).
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
To be fair . . . what exactly would adding a hefty tax to a government agency's bill accomplish? Other than saving the federal government from sending money to the state, but it's already doing that with the building and personnel itself.
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
What is it going to accomplish? Are ye Daft?
It accomplishes exactly what any tax does. You were expecting the Feds to pick up and move their data center?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Have gnu, will travel.
It generates government revenue, paid for by government revenue plus overhead. So . . .
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
$1.5B 4 months from completion ....
hit them with the tax. what they are going to throw away $1.5B in setup cost and then spend another $1.5B if not more on a new centre. on $2.4M worth of tax ...
Stupid politicians, sure they are just cover their arses... Wouldn't surprise me if the NSA flexed some muscle ... we will reveal this if you don't ....
The fscking NSA is snooping on damned near every American both onshore and offshore, as well as millions of people overseas, snarfing up dozens of terabytes of data on a DAILY basis; yet has no fscking clue as to the legislation that is going to directly affect them and their budget? This is another reason why we need to eliminate as many agencies of the Federal Government as possible, and get back to Article I, Section 8 permitted functions.
Sigh.....
The State of Utah would get far more in tax revenue from the feds if it could tax the power this site is going to use.
Some of that tax money would be paid by Utah citizens via their Federal Income tax, but the overwhelmingly vast majority of it would come from the rest of the US tax payers in other states.
As it stands now, Utah tax payers are going to have to pick up the slack for the free-loading federal government.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
TROLLL!!!
Utah is the Mitt capital of the U.S. of A.
Anyone who believes Mitt's not behind this is very uninformed.
Remember, Mitt did not lose the election; he choose not to win it instead.
Fuck 'em. They can pay the bill like everyone else. Don't like it? Move your shit somewhere else - it's called outsourcing or offshoring or whatever.
Lots of corporations have move their operations elsewhere when they were dissatisfied.
The NSA can do the same; I'm sure they'd be welcome at Guantanamo Bay.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
I said something to that effect in my first post. Don't talk down to somebody about missing something when they have addressed it.
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
It is, of course, tempting to dismiss his extreme claims as some sort of mental aberration -- perhaps resulting from his having hit the jackpot with the sale of his company for, by some accounts, between $3B and $4B to one of the most prominent credit rating agencies in the world.
On the other hand, he did sell his company for between $3B and $B to one of the most prominent credit rating agencies in the world.
Moreover, if we give the initial statement in Clark's Laws any credence: "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right.", RHN's age and the fact that he is commenting on his specialization should be given some weight.
With this in mind, I would ask you to review the linked presentation -- which I located at Sandia's website (and of which I recommend you commit to memory lest it disappear down the memory hole) -- made by RHN at Sandia in 2006. Note he proposes an "Extraction System Organization" with a budget rising to $300B/year by 2015.
In particular, I found this item interesting:
CAUTION: Some obviously psychotic individuals claim there to be a deep relationship between credit card companies and the surveillance state. They should be locked up for their own safety.
Seastead this.
Utah complies with NSA while gun in the face
Utah senators...or else they owe 2mil.
It makes me wonder about the cash flow associated with energy taxes in Utah.
If this is an honest tax and not a pure revenue grab then I believe the Feds should pay their own way. i.e. if the tax exists to pay for associated infrastructure used and consumed by the site then there is a need for the Feds to pay their own way.
Utah to my knowledge is a net energy exporter because of the Colorado River and the large low sulfur coal deposits and tall stack power generation facilities. To tax local consumption seems at odds with a net exporter. Further is there a power export tax.
I also wonder about hazards natural and man made in this area.
The area has one of the largest production and storage facilities associated with rocket fuel. Mostly relocated from southern Nevada after the big blast south of Vegas.
The area has some earthquake risks. A major quake zone "Intermountain Seismic Belt" runs through the area. It is unclear if there is a modern risk but when I lived there and looked into the topic I was concerned and put together my first quake bug out kit.
Lastly and most importantly is "GLOBAL WARMING" that could turn the Great Salt Lake Desert into a great brine lake that laps up on the bounds of the new facility. Electronics and brine do not play well together. I do not know the elevation of the construction and if they site could be cut off but I do know that many wells south of the area are salty as heck and also contain serious levels of radon.
Perhaps the location is exactly correct.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
the NSA doesn't want to pay taxes.. Go figure...
Now we have a great dilemma for the government: Do we pay for our own surveillance or do we pay for our own surveillance? If they get a huge tax break, the people of Utah are subsidizing worldwide surveillance. If they don't, the NSA is pulling money from all taxpayers to fund it.
As a matter of principle, I think that they shouldn't be getting a tax break (especially at such high consumption, they should be paying more for that than the businesses and people that draw less), that will also lead to them not putting as much, if any, effort into reducing their consumption. But in taking this position in the frame of this particular debate, that means that I think they should be using my taxes to pay for their datacenter.
I think their datacenter shouldn't exist, but in forcing the issue this way, it frames it in such a way that its existence is a given. I don't like that.
the state of utah is getting far more than tax revenue.. they're gonna all the intel on anti-utah / anti-morman communications and sentiments within the state... a true bargain by any measure.
The NSA couldn't hack a smart meter? It'd be fun to watch the Serious Spooks vs. the Utah Gas & Electric Company's IT staff....
Letting us know exactly how much it is costing the rest of us to subsidize this thing?
I know, I know...for people high enough up the financial food chain, money is just an abstract symbol to be manipulated. But for those who are left in bondage as indentured servants to make good on those bad promises, it is quite real.
I am John Hurt.
Cowards - The facility was a few months from completion and they didn't have the balls not to exempt it from this power tax? Oh, wait, I forgot - NSA has so little money, the tax could have compromised our security and aided teh terrists.
For some reason I have a hard time believing that the NSA doesn't know about considering recent revelations.
No, you didn't.
Could they have decided any other way?
So what if they didn't know about it? I have to pay taxes all the time that are introduced and that I hitherto didn't know about, and might have made lots of different investment decisions had I known they were going to happen. But I've got to live with it. Boo hoo to the NSA cry babies.
Can I tax the IRS on what they earn from me?