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NSA Chief Built Star Trek Like Command Center
Bruce66423 writes "As the NSA scandal moves from appalling to laughable, the latest report in the Guardian indicates that the current NSA chief spent US taxpayers' money to create a command center for his intelligence operations that was styled just like Star Trek. From the PBS News Hour report: 'When he was running the Army's Intelligence and Security Command, Alexander brought many of his future allies down to Fort Belvoir for a tour of his base of operations, a facility known as the Information Dominance Center. It had been designed by a Hollywood set designer to mimic the bridge of the starship Enterprise from Star Trek, complete with chrome panels, computer stations, a huge TV monitor on the forward wall, and doors that made a 'whoosh' sound when they slid open and closed. Lawmakers and other important officials took turns sitting in a leather 'captain's chair' in the center of the room and watched as Alexander, a lover of science-fiction movies, showed off his data tools on the big screen. "Everybody wanted to sit in the chair at least once to pretend he was Jean-Luc Picard," says a retired officer in charge of VIP visit '"
Probably the closest you can get to living in the future.
Engage!
... wait, what?
with other people's money
I got to the chocolate box before you, that's why the hard ones have teeth marks.
it is, right?
If it were a real bridge of a real starship, they could leave.. and leave us ALONE!
It's still a better design than rows of generic gray or beige cubes.
I, for one, will be deducting my share of the cost of this from my next Income Tax bill.
The design of the War Room in Dr. Strangelove looked a lot less cheesy.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalomania
More stuff they can't even justify as "war on terror" like this reaches the masses, the better.
Yes, time to leave...
Scott me up Beamy.
doing miracles
...with public funds? I guess they kept the majority of the budget for cleaning supplies for the remainder of the year.
And how much taxpayer money was burnt on this nutjobs sci-fi wet dream? Its like watching any one of those films depicting a dystopian future, those in power playing out their fantasies while those who actually fund their antics (either through taxes or illicit corporate profits) live in squalor. I suppose the latter part has yet to completely come to pass but at the rate things are going ($17 trillion in debt & federal spending increasing at $200 a second)its not going to take long.
I hope they have replaced the CRTs to flat panels. Doesn't feel very modern with CRTs.
One of the contractors has pics online of what is likely to be this installation:
http://www.dbia.com/projectpage/LIWA.pdf
Mirrored here:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/15/nsa-mind-keith-alexander-star-trek
I hope they have replaced the CRTs to flat panels. Doesn't feel very modern with CRTs.
Do we actually need any more proof that the NSA is completely out of control and run by a nutball? Visions of grandeur anyone? Even the President just uses a regular (nice but regular) chair and desk.
Any NSA apologists care to take a stab at this one? (I could use a laugh)
Who knows, it probably didnt cost any more money to build than a more plain control room would. If that is the case, I don't know if it really makes a lot of sense to make a big uproar over it. As long as it doesnt cost any more, why not make it look neat?
Shut it down, charge the top brass of the NSA with high treason. Maybe that will deter future abuses.
... a facility known as the Information Dominance Center.
I thought information wanted to be free.
I guess we're the "bottom" in this NSA BDSM situation because all I've seen so far is the NSA reaching for the big, black strap-on... But I thought the bottom has all the power in this kind relationship - and we obviously don't - so I'm really confused.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
NSA... star-trek like command center... Who else immediately thought of the Dreadnought bridge from Into Darkness?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
The Socialists thought they could control the economy with project Cybersyn under Allende:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn
Yes, and air is their primary breathing gas, water the main component of their beverages, and they drive around in vehicles powered by gasoline, itself mostly dug out of countries harboring these very terrorists! We can't have that! Nobody should be allowed to breathe air, drink water, or drive a car without government control. (And if you think recent administrations haven't been trying, you haven't been paying attention.)
Seems like this would save money. Why re-invent the wheel? The producers of Star Trek had already created a design for a command center. All NSA did was copy the design instead of wasting money coming up with their own unique command center design. Why the outrage?
it is cerebro of xmen to control all human around the world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_eSwq1ewsU
Looks like it would cost as much as a swanky office. Higher ups tend to have nice offices. The TNG bridge looked like a good design. Not much harm in copying a good design.
I would be worried about lifespan of the furniture instead. If that room and furniture lasts for 50+ years, I'd consider it a good value.
To explore new data and probe every computer in existence... these are the voyages of the NSA!
You seriously don't have the slightest clue how much things actually cost. The entire place probably cost a fraction of, say, one Tomahawk missile launch into Syria. They had to build the place anyway, and they needed a control center of some kind, so my guess is Star-Trekifing it probably cost less than 1% of the total budget, and that's just for construction. It costs millions to keep a place like that running. I say, either let them have their fun, or demand that they cut costs in a much bigger way, but don't complain about what amounts to pin-striping on the side of a fighter jet as though it would even make the tiniest pit of difference to the big picture.
It doesn't, it won't, and it can't. PBS is just looking for something to whine about.
What the FUCK has happened to this country?
So what if it if the design is inspired by a Sci-Fi TV show? Show me that this would have cost way more than some other design had a non-Star Trek fan been responsible for its acquisition.
The money's bad but I don't find it the most disturbing part of this. The place doesn't look that much more expensive than any office the senior management of a large organization would work in.
It's the mindset that would want such an Information Dominance Center that is disturbing. It bespeaks a person willing to use his position to live out a fantasy. In this fantasy, the fate of the galaxy country rests in his singular hands. Far from being a functionary who answers to civilian authorities, he's the protagonist in some grand drama.
And as much as I love Star Trek, a Star Trek fantasy is the last one I'd see in such a man. Star Trek captains righteously flout all the rules. When superiors order them to stand down, when their fundamental laws (the Prime Directive) deny them the power, when the lives of entire worlds are at stake, they do what they think best, damn the torpedoes, warp 9, engage. A man with such delusions of grandeur ought not be put in charge of HUD, much less a secretive organization known for its willingness to spy on citizens.
This is apparently video of it from 2007:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFNUbdARitk
DBI has built control rooms for other agencies. Here's their portfolio. They did the new White House Situation Room (which looks reasonable), the National Counterterrorism Center (overdid the lighting effects), Lockheed Martin (looks like a movie set, overhead lighting grids and all), a NASA auditorium (just rows of seats and some big screens), GeoEye (overdid the ceiling design), Defense Information Security Agency (fancy ceiling, lots of Eames chairs.)
But only for the NSA facility did they really go over the top. This is the silliest control center design since the Moscow United electric power control center The layout makes no sense. The person in the "Captain's chair" is in front, and can't see what everybody else is doing. The "captains chair" has no controls or screens of its own, so whomever sits there cannot do anything except shout orders.
A common setup in operational control centers, especially USAF and NASA, is to have the ability for each station to look at screens of other stations in view-only mode. (Originally this was done with an actual channel selector and an analog cable TV system). When something important is happening, a lot of people may need to look at one display. This eliminates everybody crowding around the station that has the key information at the moment. Once you have that, the physical layout doesn't matter as much.
The result is that most modern military command centers are rather boring - they look like a help-desk operation. The current NORAD center looks much less impressive than its predecessors. In the field, a bunch of laptops in a tent can operate as a command center. A modern tactical operations center looks like that, not like one of these fancy overdecorated rooms.
It's ok to throw away other people's money as we shred the constitution and march towards fascism as long as we do it in relatively small increments!
Oh wait, this isn't acceptable and neither is most of the other government bullshit.
than after the Cardassians.
Yes, in the grand scheme of military/intelligence spending its a drop in the bucket. Problem is we have millions of them, and they're adding up fast. That command facility that was built in Afghanistan and never used/wanted, $34 Million. GAO audits have classified nearly half of purchases on government charge cards as improper. The SEC spent nearly $3.9 million rearranging desks at its DC HQ. Congress members have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money on cars, popcorn machines, cameras, TV's and other amenities. And the list goes on, and on, and on. I'm all for going after the big ticket waste as well, but you can die from a thousand small cuts just as easily as you can die from a meat cleaver to the head.
The poster didn't say the whole thing was acceptable, just that the amount is so insignificant that it doesn't matter in the least and should NOT be the focus of such complaints. It's true. The same goes for an individual household's budget. If you go deeply into debt to buy the big luxury SUV, and the thing your wife complains about is that you "wasted" the extra $200 on the upgraded stereo, she's complaining about the wrong thing entirely!
On the other hand, a cool control center might actually help attract better talent. Extra perks to help attract and retain the best people can sometimes be, and often are, worth it, as proven by companies like Google and Facebook, etc. There is also a very real, and important reason why these government agencies exist. You can argue that they've deviated beyond those reasons, but it doesn't negate that they basically must exist and are, in some cases, essential. I would much rather have the best people working there (and maybe those folks can even help effect positive change from within if there are enough of them). If spending a comparative few pennies extra on this sort of thing on rare occasions helps there, I'd actually be OK with it.
There are more efficient way to implement command and control systems than a century old battleship bridge. Or everyone staring at the same big display. But it sure looks good for the spectators.
Have gnu, will travel.
The problem with overlords who sieze power (have you read any news on Augusta Pinochet this week?) or who we hand power over to, is finding someone who really is a superior human being. Not guaranteed. Obviously.
Plus, they could have picked up a cheap used TNG bridge from that Vegas place. An organization with the funding of the NSA should be able to launder out the smell of hookers and despair.
On a set like that, it would not surprise me if those monitors show fancy 3D-animations of the 'interior' of machines they are about to break-and-enter, airlock-type doors with blinking red 'NO ACCESS' writing on them accompanied by clanging noises, integrated circuits visualised as city landscapes and more of that stuff which we've always laughed about in the movies about hacking and hackers...
--frank[at]unternet.org
have taken over.
The "command center" would have been built anyway, making it 'cool' wouldn't have cost that much more money and goes a long way for employee morale, which should not be dismissed.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Is this guy running the NSA:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/001/569/insp_captkirk_5_.jpg
(Apologies to William Shatner)
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Living in a fantasy.
Is it worth it? Does the ROI actually make everybody more productive?
Everybody wanted to sit in the chair at least once to pretend he was Jean-Luc Ponty.
and pretty soon you're talking some real money.
(Often attributed to Senator Dirksen, but it has not been positively confirmed.)
This is but one of many proofs that these people are not in charge.
They're just expendable meatbags. They do not have even a sliver of understanding or knowledge relevant to their task. They're fall guys and scapegoats set to do seemingly important tasks to keep them on hold until needed.
Suggested experiment: remove all NSA leaders and administration but leave all hardware intact.
Expected result: no significant change.
Feel free.
Pics or it didn't happen
THAT'S IT?!?! That was the best they could come up with? A fancy car seat in the middle of a room with a bunch of aluminum curved surfaces? The original 1966 Enterprise bridge is far more interesting. I was expecting to see something a lot more cooler. People build better Star Trek looking media rooms in their basements.
.....they named it the "Inner Pries" because they pry into people's lives. I'll bet they're proud to inhabit the poop deck, too. What a bunch of pathetic dweebs...........
Video located.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
The summary did say he "brought many of his future allies down", clearly a reference to the crew of a time-travelling Starship beaming themselves down to his office.
Provided it isn't elaborate as elaborate as a Hollywood set, I see no harm in him creating his own sort of private holodeck to survive the reality of his boring information processing job. At least Trekkies are fans of a utopian and relatively peaceful future. I shudder to think what would be going on in his mind if he had been a Star Wars, Matrix or Terminator fan.
Yeah, the CRTs certainly made me think "ooh futuristic".
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
So, where do I get the job playing a Klingon for them?
Table-ized A.I.
To spend in ways no man has spent before
Table-ized A.I.
I was not looking for a word.
You seem confused on how the big picture works. Legalities are being figured out, and it is probable that existing, mounting public pressure will make the legislative branch take on the executive branch, and determine what actually is legal. Meanwhile, more information is coming from FISC and other decisions and policies, so the people who say what's legal can see what other people who say what's legal based their decisions on. The entirety of case law which resulted in a win for the prosecution was stuff that was legal until a court said it wasn't. And I can't see a flawless victory when 2 of 3 branches disagree with the Executive. So we still don't know. Oh, you didn't want opinion, you wanted something more substantial, like the FISA court finding the NSA to be in violation of the fourth amendment. So no, just because someone says it's legal doesn't mean it is.
And I spent THE REST OF THE PARAGRAPH explaining what is wrong with that single chair. In a nutshell: More than one person should have an unobstructed view of a 22 foot screen, and I count reflection off the chrome as obstruction.
No one yet has mentioned that the PDF lists the completion date as 1999 - well in time to have had some effect two years later but failing to do so. According the the Foreign Policy Article, "On Aug. 1, 2005, Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander reported for duty as the 16th director of the National Security Agency". If that is the right document, planning would have been under Lt Gen Kenneth A. Minihan (February 1996 - March 1999) or if they were super fast, Lt Gen Michael V. Hayden.
The chronology is wrong, or the documents are wrong, or the story is wrong. And you expect people to "Let the NSA geek feel like he's Captain Picard"? It is not going to happen, because people don't work that way. They are already outraged at something that, one way or another, isn't even a story.
Care to defend the "doors that made a 'whoosh' sound when they slid open and closed"? Because I'm sure people will start listening to reason now. Or, do you instead realize the answers to all your "Why" questions above?
and then went away and helped NSA's cause and budget in Congress/Committee.
Oops. He did this in the Army's Intelligence and Security Command, he's now been put in charge of the NSA.
(Presumably his new NSA Ultimate Information Dominance Command Centre is all glass and blue high-lights, with pin-lights shining right into people eyes.)
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
this is a BS article. the real costs are in information collection, analytics, and personnel. the command center needed to be built. why not make it look cool.
it's all marketing. they need to keep their budget going, show that they're fighting the good fight. a command center like this makes the case.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
why our world rewards people like this with power and money, when people who work hard, honest and smart lose their homes and can't send their kids to good schools. Dismiss me as a know-nothing AC as you will, in your heart you know I'm right. We're toast.
Certainly, I couldn't agree more. But that's not what I was talking about.
Certainly, I couldn't agree more. But that's not what I was talking about.
Context here is important. We're not talking about the underling who refuses the unjust order. We're not talking about the outside contractor who goes whistle-blower on his former employer. We're not dealing with the valiant Starfleet captain refusing to accept the judgment of a corrupt admiral. We're talking about the guy giving the underling the unjust order; the employer whose patriotic employees must flee the country after speaking out for its sake; the admiral whose worst corruption is that he breaks the law while thinking himself the valiant captain. We can hope that the underling, the whistleblower, or the captain might stand up to such a man, but this is only a scarce hope. The normal means, indeed the preferred means, of preventing such things is to bind such a man with law and transparency. But an organization such as the NSA denies in word and deed that it should be subject to transparency; it is your Section 31. And we know because of the whistleblower how regularly it flouts the fundamental laws meant to bind it.
This is why I call this man's decision to model himself on Star Trek captains disturbing. It's the context. An NSA Chief will not fancy himself the corrupt admiral whose unjust orders Kirk, Picard, or Sisko refuse since they answer to the higher law of their conscience. He will sit in the captain's chair and, hearing Fourth Amendment like Prime Directive, will regard himself as the valiant rogue captain, out to save the Federation against its own lesser judgment. This is, after all, usually the case with corrupt admirals. Thus I agree with Lewis when he says:
In short, I do not say this because I think all laws ought always to be obeyed. Rather I say this because I think some laws ought to be obeyed. Especially by those in charge, whose lust for power, whose self-righteousness presumption, and above all whose assumption that they know what's best, the laws themselves were meant to contain.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/09/whats-worse-than-an-oil-spill-a-molasses-spill/279640/
http://www.dbia.com/portfolio/us-army/
I almost don't care because it's awesome.
The fucking planet is run by 13 year old boys hiding in "adult" bodies.
A bunch of government assholes need some serious jail time.
I wasn't sure what would dominate these comments.... privacy chants or trekkies seeing and defending a childhood fantasy.
I think the trekkies are winning out.
really makes you want to pay more taxes...
A few desks and computers in consols and some metal on the walls, not that well done either. As far as war rooms go it is pretty boring.
Tell somebody it is the local fire brigade emergency coordination center and they would believe you if they had not been told the story.
I suspect that Greenwald has watched Dr Strangelove once too often.
For sure their other crimes pale in comparison to such a copyright infringement or did they also use taxpayers money for the royalties too?
Actually, it's not very funny as the power delusions are played out on the backs of the serfs.
Sieg Heil!
I never thought much of these toy soldiers playing James Bond, but it turns out that even then I overestimated them.
I suppose once you start believing that the voodoo of lie detectors is real the only way to go is down.
Since a Hollywood set designer was involved it should be enough to ring alarm bells with the adult supervision. Obviously there was a complete lack of adult supervision for these toy soldiers.
As long Majel Barrett responds to the voice commands, it's money well spent.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
... second for Klingon Empire. I would love to work in Bird of Prey.
it probably cost at least as much as one tomahawk.
but furthermore, it's useless as a real control center. you know it from the name.. dominance.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Look at "Men who stare at goats" about General Stubblebine, formerly INSCOM chief.
Information processing is indeed a very tough job that strains human beings.
A perfect example of the "Think of the children" approach of policy making.Children surely will love this!
And a lot cheaper than building real spaceships, BTW.
So now we know Keith Alexander is a grandiose narcissist. This is who we are forced to give all our secrets to "for the greater good". We are spied by a bunch of psychopaths. Don't expect anything good coming ouf of it. Expect misery, blood, terror and tears - this is the only thing you can expect from psychopaths wielding so much power as Keith Alexander does.
It probably cost 10-20 times the average annual US wage more than a straightforward and more functional bullpen office layout.
May the Maths Be with you!
I bet they love this part of Starfleet.
"I don't which is worse, that everyone has a price, or that the price is always so low"--Hobbes
An "Information Dominance Center" arranged more like a throne room than a functional working environment...I guess when a human gets a taste of 2 of the 3 aspects of godhood, it goes to their head a bit.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
recent tapes by Ayman al-Zawahiri ... calling for ...not buying stuff made in America.
That's OK, I'm pretty sure Doritos aren't halal.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Alexander, you st00pid n00b, I like my world control centers ST style. :TOS here, since that would be recognizing inferior sequels...
no
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
This story is useless without pics
Thanks for pointing out that this was done a while ago FLM, I was starting to worry about the prevalence of CRT monitors in this purported "high-tech" panopticon. And that "captain's chair" looks kind of just stuck-in there, not nicely integrated like a real H*llywood control center.
All-in-all, I'm disappointed congressmen would be wowed by this, it certainly doesn't pass muster with my highly-refined aesthetic sense.
Also, shouldn't this really be all Tom Cruise "Minority Report" style?!
Or with VR googgles like Klytus' secret police monitoring center in the 80's Flash Gordon movie?
Maybe the best way to mock this is to start digging up real cringeworthy ST fan apartment remodels to compare it to.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
You'd think an agency that focuses on spying, lying, and cloak and dagger type shit they'd have gone with a Romulan war bird rather than a federation star ship.
The problem is that we have a thousand meat cleavers AND a thousand small cuts. In that case, it makes far more sense to concentrate on the meat cleavers.
Or, do you instead realize the answers to all your "Why" questions above?
I have only realized that there are now two groups of pompous and arrogant assholes with a distorted view of the world: The NSA, and the NSA's detractors.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Resistance is Futile, you will be assimilated...
Seriously? Sounds like someone is overcompensating...
That the IRS needs to step it up a few notches for THEIR command center..
That they use the same dilithium-powered display screens as the fictional Enterprise. None of this "surge protector" nonsense.
Apparently actor Jeffrey Hunter gave an interview with a TV magazine (TV Guide??) around 1966 where he stated that the RAND Corporation was controlling the Star Trek episodes with their vision of the future. So is it that Star Trek and Hollywood influenced the NSA? Or is it that the military industrial complex influenced the NSA?
From the nineties: it's the end of Wrath of Khan, Kirk alone is on the bridge, with smoke in the air, and Khan's ship is coming about on the viewscreen.
Just then a tall man in a white suit walks onto the bridge, taps Captain Kirk on the shoulder, and announces, "Lt. Hooker[1], your fantasy is over."[2]
Where's that guy in the white suit when we need him, to end Alexander's fantasy?
mark
1. Google the tv series, T.J. Hooker and Shatner
2. Fantasy Island reference.
And the NSA minions/cheerleaders, what are they? Not assholes I guess. Just sheep? sheeple? Or just future foot soldiers for govt service (citizen suppression).
TFA links to a PDF showing the command center itself (posted by the architects). That server, in turn, has hit "Bandwidth Limit Exceeded." First time in ages I've seen something Slashdotted. Also, ISTR the Navy examining the bridge design from ST:TOS for ideas for the bridges of their own ships. So in amongst the pillorying of this particular commander and the US Government in general, we should be saluting Matt Jefferies for coming up with so robust a design for a command center. Comments are my own.
Save Maine's economy: write stuff down. All comments are exclusively my own, not my employer.
...eight times more likely to die at the hands of a policeman in the US than by acts of terrorism...
So I'm more likely to die by terrorist action, than to die by terrorist action? I'll have to think about that one.
[not really joking, but wishing I were...]
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
While the government rips money out of our pockets to feed the rich and powerful with their inane fantasies, all you folks can do is talk a about terrorism!!! Look quick - over there! Pretty fiery colors!!!
Honestly back when the atmosphere wasn't so hostile against the NSA, they could have put this in a recruiting pamphlet and the tech news pages would be buzzing with jokes and approval instead of condemnation. Google has giant statues of cupcakes and jelly beans, Facebook has free computer accessory vending machines, and the NSA has Star Trek command centers. It's a world with fierce competition to tempt the best minds to join you with perks, including atmosphere, and every company in the world spends way too much time trying to make their conference room one-up the competition to impress visitors (in this case congressional overseers). Sure, the NSA is funded by tax money. Does that really mean you expect everyone working there to live in drab undecorated concrete rooms?
This Washington Post bit (hopefully you don't need to sign on to your Amazon account to get access to it :-)) says
assuming the "sources" are actually telling the truth.
Still a bit WTF, however.
“Look on my works , YE mighty, AND DESPAIR!” Ozymandias
Maniacal little boys playing with other people's money. Nice.
This is how these loosers spend my hard earned money!!! I coukd have kept it and invested in my retirement fund, or out it towards my child's college fund. I hope these idiots rot in the deepest darkest pit of hell.
One of my favorite waste activities to bitch about is mandatory meetings where the whole organization has to be present for an hour or two. I've been to exactly two of those in more than a decade of federal service that I thought were well worth the time spent. I figured out the other day that each time our self absorbed leadership has one where I work now it cost roughly $18,000 in lost man hours per 60 minutes of briefing.
So did the Canadian National railway some 20+ years ago.
For command and control there a lot of reasons to go with
this model.
It is an adaption of the NASA space and rocket control centers, just more visible data.