In the little town of Bluffdale, Utah, between the
Wasatch Range and the Oquirrh Mountains, the National Security Agency (NSA)
is building what will be the nation's largest spy center, reports Wired, a print magazine and online publication reporting on technological
developments and their effects, including electronic privacy. Dubbed the Utah
Data Center, the project is already employing thousands of hardhat workers in
its construction and will son have some 10,000
construction workers building a data center that will be more than five times
the size of the nation's capitol, Wired
reports.
"We've been asked not to talk about the project," Rob Moore,
president of Big-D Construction, one of the three major contractors working
on the project, told a local reporter. Plans for the center include a $10
million antiterrorism protection program, a fence designed to stop a
15,000-pound vehicle traveling 50 miles per hour, closed-circuit cameras, a
biometric identification system, a vehicle inspection facility, and a
visitor-control center, the magazine said.
The $2 billion center is scheduled to be in operation by September 2013. Its
purpose will be to intercept and analyze electronic communications both
foreign and domestic. The information will be stored in vast data bases that
will include the complete contents of private emails, cellphone calls, and
Google searches, as well as "all sorts of personal data trails — parking
receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital 'pocket
litter,' " Wired reports, noting that the center will be in many
respects the realization of the Total
Information Awareness program created during the first term of the Bush
administration. Congress killed the program after it produced a public and
media outcry over invasion of privacy.
Financial information, business deals, legal documents, and personal
communications will be monitored at the center, along with foreign military
and diplomatic secrets. According to an anonymous "top official"
quoted in the story, the NSA's code-breaking ability enables the agency to
break through encryption systems employed not only by governments around the
world, but also by average computer users in the United States. According to
the official, "Everybody's a target; everybody with communication is a
target."
NSA, the "largest, most covert, and potentially most intrusive
intelligence agency ever created," has been overflowing with tens of
billions of government dollars annually since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the
magazine says. While its primary role is to discover and monitor threats to
U.S. security from overseas sources, it is has turned its surveillance
operations on citizens here in the U.S. as well, as officials sift through
billions of email messages and phone calls from both overseas and here in
"the homeland."
"Finally, the agency has begun building a place to store all the
trillions of words and thoughts and whispers captured in its electronic
net," Wired warns. "To those on the inside, the old adage
that NSA stands for Never Say Anything applies more than ever."
Source @TNA
Written by Jack Kenny
