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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 '"
Awesome? It's creepy at best.
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.
If it were a real bridge of a real starship, they could leave.. and leave us ALONE!
Only if you wear a red shirt.
For a DIY hobby project maybe. Somehow, I don't find it very comforting that this is the mindset of people who are entrusted with everyone's private information (things like banking data, medical records, private correspondence, news interests, political leanings, whereabouts etc.). It kind of gives the impression that it's just a game to them.
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.
We ALL wear red shirts.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Cubes worked just fine for the Borg...
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Also, what about the name "Information Dominance Center"? Creepy and pathetic at the same time; it sounds like BDSM-style slash-fic based on TRON. Bring in the Logic Probe!
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
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.
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.
Yes, there are terrorist threats to the US, and they are less of a threat than bathtubs.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
This is apparently video of it from 2007:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFNUbdARitk
Nothing. The curtains have merely been pulled back a little.
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.
In other words, Terrorism is not actually a real threat, but it's designed to make you act irrationally out of fear, The answer is not act irrationally out of fear, but be careful about using your budget, but to not act irrationally out of fear. Also, to quit being dicks on the international stage and stop being involved in political coups.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I'd be alright with it if they also treated the Bill of Rights like the Prime Directive.
An important change for education.
Flaw 1: Assumption that NSA and US citizens are members of the same crew ... the original red shirt ... has already been taken out (i.e lost his freedom)
Flaw 2: Not recognizing that freedom is the crew, we are all the red shirts, and NSA is the enemy.
Flaw 3: Saying we'll eventually find out, when Snowden
Flaw 4: Extending any Star Trek analogy
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
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.
Yes, al Qaida is doing everything they can to harm us. The sad thing is our government seems to be doing everything they can to help al Qaida (and the Muslim Brotherhood).
Y'all enjoying your loss of freedom and privacy in the name of safety? Thought so.
On the last real Enterprise (CVN-65) flight deck, ordnance personnel wore red jerseys, aircraft maintenance wore green, fuelers purple, and crash and safety white, etc. The idea is to allow the Air Boss to ID who's where and whom at an instant to run the deck. Also Forrestall class aircraft carrier Combat Direction Centers (Enterprise was designed on a modified Forrstall blueprint) were laid out in a more or less similar horseshoe shape with the Tactical Action Officer (TAO) chair elevated in the middle looking across from the status displays, which the series bridge layout reminded me of, kind of. I'm sure that's where Roddenberry got the idea of colored uniforms to designate branch (ops blue and engineering red). Anyway, art often imitates life, and visa versa. For a command center, the Forrestall/Enterprise layout was, in my experience, far superior to Nimitz class layout for maintaining situational awareness. Ergonomics count, as we learn, forget and relearn, over and over and over.
Actually, the whole damn story reminds me of an old film about an American military coup: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_days_in_may [wikipedia.org]
All we need now, is a new Senator Joe McCarthy at the helm . . .
2000, 2004, 2008, & 2012. Done and done. With a little Mao, Stalin, & Mussolini thrown in on both.
In two main flavors.
We have the (D)ick-flavored one now. We had the (R)ectum-flavored one last time.
But don't throw away your vote. The wrong lizard might get in.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Bullshit.
Bin Liden's falling out with Saudi Arabia was over their invitation of American troops to defend them from Iraq after the initial invasion of Kuwait. Bin Laden publicly denounced Saudi dependence on the U.S. military, arguing the two holiest shrines of Islam, Mecca and Medina, the cities in which the Prophet Mohamed received and recited Allah's message, should only be defended by Muslims. Bin Laden's criticism of the Saudi monarchy led them to try to silence him. They subsequently revoked his citizenship and he relocated to Sudan.
He declared war on the United States in August of 1996 because after defeating the Iraqis, the U.S. left troops in The Kingdom. His fatwa was titled "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places" and explicitly states that the highest prioriy is pushing the unbelievers out of the Holy Land.
What al-Qaida really wants ranks right up there with my son wanting a pony. Neither is ever going to get remotely what they state, nor are they capable of really trying. al-Qaida knows they have to defeat the "near enemy" -- all of the autocratic rulers of the Middle East -- to form their beloved Caliphate before they can think about dealing with the "far enemy" -- the West. Notice how little progress they've made on that front. What, Iran? Anything else?
Considering bin Laden ranked the Shia right there with Infidels and Jews, I'd say he had his hands full with formenting a Muslim civil war before getting anywhere else.
al-Qaida's weapon on 9/11/2001 was surprise, and you know it. SOP for dealing with a hijacking was sit back and wait until it was over. That'll never happen again. al-Qaida has virtually no ability to strike the West with any force. They also have their hands full with all of the "Arab Spring" issues to even think about dealing with the "far enemy" at all.
If the Islamists can't even hold Egypt when it was handed to them on a silver platter, their so called "demand" that the U.S. convert to Islam ranks somewhere just below them all getting ponies for Christmas.
They can't even get Sharia implemented in places like Egypt, Turkey, Kuwait, Lebanon and Jordan, much less anywhere outside their home turf.
Reading their Christmas wish list and taking it for gospel is disingenuous. Especially when it looks like it isn't going anywhere near according to plan. Egypt shows that just because the autocrat was out doesn't mean anyone really wants the Islamists in. Just trading boots.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Its bullshit man, sure there's people who act as terrorists (see "The Mandarin, Ironman") for a (movie example, since literary examples are not quite relevant anymore).
There has been no significant threat to Americans thwarted by the CIA or NSA. The FBI was told to STAND DOWN before 911. And the prior bombing int he basement. Even though they had specific intel on both incidents.
The intel that gets shared on public mass media is propanda. There were no bunkers for Hussam in Iraq. There is no grand chemical weapons threat.
Could something happen like the incident in Tokyo with Sarin gas? Sure but its just as likely to be government funded than an actual terrorist organization. At this point.
The point is we cannot trust our government to "protect us". Take away our freedom, disabling our means of protecting ourselves. They don't want revolution. Because we are on the verge of something tianamin square level in the states. Despite how much people want to bury their heads in the sand.
2 million bikers in DC this month/last few weeks. Not even aired on public TV. Take a good look at your world. At the corporations, the services they provide. Who they cater to. And how your police operate.
Take a solid hard look. Don't take my word for it.
Ask why there are so many disenfranchised poor vagrant transient people in America today. Ask why welfare exists. Question everything. Look at it all.
What I find more disturbing than one narcissist with an unlimited budget was the idea that this was really built not as his idea of an actual data-command-centre, but as a set to impress VIPs, especially Congressmen, especially those on oversight committees...
What I find disturbing is that they claim it worked. None of those VIPs had the reaction that apparently everyone else in the entire fucking world had upon hearing about this (and moreso on seeing it). Not one, not a single one of them went, "WTF? Are you people insane?", they were all impressed and wanted to sit in the "Captain's chair", and then went away and helped NSA's cause and budget in Congress/Committee.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Cold re "They have destabilized multiple countries" so has the CIA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_regime_change_actions
Every country in the region has a database of useful 'freedom fighters' to ship around as needed. The only implications are its little regional wars as usual and the same teams keep showing up year after year after year.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
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.
The far greatest threat that al Qaida poses is that the government is using them as an excuse to trample civil liberties. Otherwise, those impotent, pissant losers aren't even worth worrying about.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz