NSA Data Center Brings Concerns Over Security and Privacy and Jobs

chamilto0516 writes "Twenty-five miles due south of Salt Lake City, a massive construction project is nearing completion. The heavily secured site belongs to the National Security Agency. The NSA says the Utah Data Center is a facility for the intelligence community that will have a major focus on cyber security. Some published reports suggest it could hold 5 zettabytes of data. Asked if the Utah Data Center would hold the data of American citizens, Alexander [director of the NSA] said, 'No...we don't hold data on U.S. citizens,' adding that the NSA staff 'take protecting your civil liberties and privacy as the most important thing that they do, and securing this nation.' But critics, including former NSA employees, say the data center is front and center in the debate over liberty, security and privacy." According to University of Utah computing professor Matthew Might, one thing is clear about the Utah Data Center, it means good paying jobs. "The federal government is giving money to the U.'s programming department to develop jobs to fill the NSA building," he says.

we don't need this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Job creation is a horrible justification for spending taxpayers' money on spying.

Interesting cycle

[MLBs]

The government is borrowing money from China to pay for jobs of people who spy on China.
I wonder what would happen when this flow of cash stops.

Re:Privacy vs "securing this nation"

[symbolset]

"Out national security mission requires that we say we are not spying on you."

Re:Privacy vs "securing this nation"

[jamstar7]

the NSA staff 'take protecting your civil liberties and privacy as the most important thing that they do, and securing this nation.'

Is anyone else having difficulty parsing this sentence?

Is anyone else having difficulty believing them when they tell me my liberties and privacy is their most important task? Or is it violating said liberties and privacy that's their Job One? There's a reason why one of the 4 great lies of history is "Hi. I'm from the Government and I'm here to help!"

Re:Privacy vs "securing this nation"

[PhamNguyen]

Sideshow Bob: (to Marge) Madame, your children are no more... than a pair of ill-bred trouble-makers.

Homer: Lisa, too?

Sideshow Bob: Especially Lisa! But, especially Bart!

Re:we don't need this.

[fustakrakich]

Depends on your POV. 'Job creation' is a very effective propaganda tool. It also works in the pollution industries, like coal mining, oil drilling, old forest logging, etc., every well, especially in economically depressed areas. When they claim they are under attack the way the state and the church do, people instinctively come running to their aid.

Look up Trailblazer

[Anonymous Coward]

If you understand the story of Trailblazer and Tom Drake, you understand everything you need to know about this project.

While you are at it, read "The Looming Tower" by Lawrence Wright - the NSA missed 9/11 not because of a lack of funding, but because of turf wars within the federal government between CIA, NSA, and FBI, and bureaucratic malpractice. Theoretically that was fixed under Bush when the CIA became just another of the dozen+ spy agencies under the umbrella of the DNI.

Most empires crumble when they go broke on military spending out of some paranoid delusion about the idea that they must control the world through the use of force. America was supposed to be different. . . our ideas were supposed to win, not our bullets. And they have been winning... except on our own soil, where they seem to be in sunset, as every one comes out of the woodwork to feed on the federal teat, and when you ask them to justify the billions of dollars they spend, they say "can't tell you, its classified" and start throwing people in prison.

Willing enslavement?

[sacrabos]

The U.of U seems to be okay with it as long as it's creating paying jobs. He's not concerned with the issues, just as long as they get money. We're forging our own chains of slavery to the government.

Re:Interesting cycle

[Anonymous Coward]

A few points:

1. There is no flow of cash. The money China lent us is already lent. The actual flow of cash from China is relative peanuts (something like 100 billion over the course of last year).
2. The government has alternative sources of revenue from taxes and straight up printing money.
3. These jobs will not be the first items on the chopping block should the "cash flow stop." We spend a ridiculous amount of money on all kinds of things we can sacrifice if it comes down to it.

See...

[Greyfox]

That's why he's the director of the NSA and I'm not. Because he can say "No, it will not hold data on US Citizens," and keep a straight face. No matter how much I practiced, I'd have to laugh the evil villain laugh after making a statement like that. Even if I had all the other qualifications, that would keep me out of the job.

Re:Duplicate datacenter

[__aaltlg1547]

Why build this when Google has the data centers and is already spying private citizens?

because sometimes Google asks for a warrant.

Re:we don't need this.

[Feyshtey]

'Job creation' is a very effective propaganda tool. It also works in the ...

...green energy stimulus programs, "community organising", unions, tax hike pushes, anti-religion movements, and most (all?) political movements from communism to socialism to fascism to monarchies to dictatorships to theocracies.

Dont pretend that the evil capitalist planet-killing industrialists have a monopoly on flat-out lying about job creation to further an end.

Re:See...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you aren't stone cold enough to bullshit a polygraph you can't get the necessary SCI clearances to get that high in the organization. Keeping a straight face during a press meeting is easy by comparison.

5 Zettabytes?

[Phat_Tony]

I'm surprised I don't see anyone here questioning this 5 zettabyte number. The biggest drives currently manufactured are 4 terabyte 3.5" drives. 5 zetabytes would require 1.25 billion of those drives. A great price on a 4TB drive right now is $190. I doubt there's enough margin in them to make this possible, but let's just say that based on the insane quantity they get them for $150 each. That's $187 billion for the drives alone, nothing for the computers and racks and air conditioning and all. The NSA's budget is estimated at 8 billion a year. $187 billion is 23 times their yearly budget. It would be about 3% of total federal spending for a year... just for the drives. Total facility costs would certainly run many times that... it would probably cost more than an entire year's military spending to build a 5 zettabyte data center.

Also, you can fit about 500 terabytes in a server cabinet. That means 10 million server cabinets. A server cabinet is about 15 cubic feet of volume. So just the cabinets alone would run 150 million cubic feet. And that's just storage, not even including computers. And it's not like you can pack them in solid, of course. If you can make a datacenter with one third of its total volume being server racks, that would be amazing. The largest building [wikipedia.org] in the world is only 472 million cubic feet, this would have to equal or surpass it.

Also, the entire world wide market for hard drives is only a little over 30 billion a year... [isuppli.com] this one project would consume over 6 times as much value in hard drives as every other use in the world combined for the year.

Unless the NSA has developed their own mass storage technology that no one else knows about and is radically superior to anything commercially available, I'm guessing someone's exaggerating or got their numbers wrong.