Protesters Launch a 135-Foot Blimp Over the NSA's Utah Data Center 104
Dega704 sends this news from Wired:
Plenty of nightmare surveillance theories surround the million-square-foot NSA facility opened last year in Bluffdale, Utah. Any locals driving by the massive complex Friday morning saw something that may inspire new ones: A massive blimp hovering over the center, with the letters NSA printed on its side.
Activist groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Greenpeace launched the 135-foot thermal airship early Friday morning to protest the agency's mass surveillance programs and to announce the launch of Stand Against Spying, a website that rates members of Congress on their support or opposition to NSA reform. The full message on the blimp reads 'NSA: Illegal Spying Below' along with an arrow pointing downward and the Stand Against Spying URL."
Activist groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Greenpeace launched the 135-foot thermal airship early Friday morning to protest the agency's mass surveillance programs and to announce the launch of Stand Against Spying, a website that rates members of Congress on their support or opposition to NSA reform. The full message on the blimp reads 'NSA: Illegal Spying Below' along with an arrow pointing downward and the Stand Against Spying URL."
Re:The US government (Score:5, Interesting)
Are in reality a bunch of shameless cowards.
I agree, but they're not as shameless as I thought. My first reaction was: they are not going to have a pilot's license much longer. But when I took a look at the aeronautical charts for that area, I was surprised to find out that it's not a prohibited area to fly over.
In my humble opinion, this means that apparently the Government doesn't think this datacenter is such a big deal, otherwise it would have been a no-fly zone (like the plant a couple of miles to the left of the lake).
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> In my humble opinion, this means that apparently the Government doesn't think this datacenter is such a big deal, otherwise it would have been a no-fly zone
Don't attribute to moral convictions what is more easily explained by simple incompetence.
federal law (Score:1)
There's nothing that allows that datacenter to have restricted airspace. They're complying with the law.
Unfortuantely, I just lost a lot of respect for the EFF when they aligned themselves with greenpeace. EFF has been, until this point, a consistently ethical organization. Greenpeace has been, to this point, consistently unethical.
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the enemy of my enemy is my enemies enemy, nothing more, nothing less.
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which makes them an "ally of opportunity" - you both benefit if you synchronize your attacks on a shared prey, but you'd be wise to assume they may turn on you at any moment as well.
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I should have said *potential* "ally..."
And yeah I get the reference - it was a trite play on words then too.
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Not invented by Kissinger, though his quote is more widely referenced nowadays.
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Greenpeace actually gets blamed pretty much any time any "pro-environment" organization does something stupid and obnoxious. This is why they have such a terrible reputation. Not to say they are totally benign, but many of the crimes that are attributed to them are often committed by a completely different organization with no ties to Greenpeace. They just happen to be the quintessential go-to batshit crazy tree huggers who are invoked anytime someone is talking about an annoying, save-the-planet type or
Re:federal law - NS have nothing on Greenpeace.. (Score:1)
Statistically Greenpeace have helped to kill maybe 5 to 10 million people. (with their 40 yr campaign to promote coal mining by stopping nuclear power)
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Re:The US government (Score:5, Interesting)
Prohibited areas are few and far between, and don't include power plants as you suggest,despite what some obedient naive security person might proclaim to an even more naive reporter.
The data center is wide open, and this was a peaceful protest. It is not possible from the picture to tell if the flight was conducted at a legal altitude or not. http://www.aopa.org/News-and-V... [aopa.org] ==the law enforcement community proved itself to be a bunch of incompetent, fragile personality types.
People like to believe anything that gives a sense of urgency or authority to what they feel they have to say.
If the government truly wanted to protect the data center, they wouldn't have placed their chiller stations on the perimeter with no barriers,or their transformer service stations, etc. The place would be disabled for months at a minimum if they were affected. An airplane flying overhead? It would barely mess up the paint. There is no reason to shut down the airspace there.
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The data center sits right in the flight path for commercial airliners landing at SLC international though because of the distance I doubt the height it was at was an issue.
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Prohibited areas are few and far between, and don't include power plants as you suggest
Well, if you would actually take the time to look at the sectional chart, you'd see what I mean. It clearly says "plant" and pilots are requested> not to overfly it at a low altitude.
The guy who was arrested a couple of years ago should not have let his case get dismissed on the condition that he would not sue the local Buford T. Justice. If it was me, I'd challenge them in court. They had no business talking that glider down or arresting the pilot.
Re:The US government (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe it's just a disaster recovery site with a few hundred secretarial staff located there, the real show could be elsewhere. We just don't know.
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Are in reality a bunch of shameless cowards.
I agree, but they're not as shameless as I thought. My first reaction was: they are not going to have a pilot's license much longer. But when I took a look at the aeronautical charts for that area, I was surprised to find out that it's not a prohibited area to fly over.
In my humble opinion, this means that apparently the Government doesn't think this datacenter is such a big deal, otherwise it would have been a no-fly zone (like the plant a couple of miles to the left of the lake).
Another way to think about it is that:
1. They want it to remain obscure.
2. They think that the facility is impenetrable from all directions.
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I was surprised to find out that it's not a prohibited area to fly over.
Now watch an emergency meeting in congress to pass a new air restriction over the building
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It's not illegal to be a shameless coward. The massive scale spying on US citizens and foreign allies was what was illegal and what we should be jailing people for.
Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
So Fucking Awesome!
That is all.
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A fairly complete description of this complex, its occupants, methods, and procedures was already published in 1961:
Memoirs Found in a Bathtub, by Stanislaw Lem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M... [wikipedia.org]
All hail the Building, set in opposition to the Anti-Building!
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You do realize the NSA is monitoring this thread, logging IPs and tracking and...
And a bunch of better guys it couldn't be, go get those EFF and Greenpeace terrorist lovers. Take the frist psot while you're at it. (Note I didn't use "ur"! Yey America!)
How effective can the spying be? (Score:4, Funny)
If they are caught off guard by A BLIMP
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What do you mean by "caught off guard?" Are you assuming that if they saw it coming, they'd shoot it down? Or would they maybe pull it over with a police blimp?
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Why bother stopping it? They possibly slipped in and added spyware and hardware to make use of themselves, including some security cameras for an "eye in the sky" that isn't all the way up to geosynchronous orbit.
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So you are saying that anyone can just park a largish airborne platform over top of important important government facilities but I still have to get pat down at the airport to fly commercial.
That just shows to go you how pointless all this security theater really is! I mean fill the cockpit with potassium perchlorate and just let the balloon go once you are over the target.
It can't really still be that easy can it? Not that we have exactly solved the truck bomb problem, but you can't get an unauthorized
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It can't really still be that easy can it?
What do you mean? Why not?
Not that we have exactly solved the truck bomb problem, but you can't get an unauthorized vehicle especially close to most sensitive targets anymore.
You're not getting close to anything important, no. If you blew up something like that, there would be martial law and all kinds of fun toys to play with, they wouldn't miss those guys. You didn't believe any of that hoohaa about the sanctity of life or whatever, did you? Because I might lol for that, if not rofl.
Anything actually important can't just be driven right up to trivially. It's not too hard to get on a base and kill some people, we've seen that demonstrated in fact, but
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If you have a light aircraft you can pretty much bomb anyplace you want. Areas directly over sensitive facilities are usually prohibited zones, which means that if you penetrate them you may be "pulled over" by a fighter jet and face big trouble after you land. They won't shoot if they can avoid it.
Trouble is, these zones are usually pretty small compared to the speed of even a small plane. For example, if you have zone with a 10 NM radius and you are flying at 120 kts, it only takes 5 minutes to reach the
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Or perhaps in an even more sinister vein, that it's not their blimp?
Why? (Score:1)
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Impeding government operations is illegal. Protesting government operations is legal. Hope that helps.
They screwed up the website (Score:4, Insightful)
Too bad they are so utterly tone-deaf that they put up a website that requires not just your zipcode but also your street address in order to look up your congressional representative's record on the NSA. Stupid web2.0 fuckheads couldn't at least include a link to a list of reps to pick from in case we didn't want to hand out our home address to god knows what data brokers? Even when I disabled noscript and disabled requestpolicy that damn lookup still wouldn't work either. Epic fucking fail.
Re:They screwed up the website (Score:5, Interesting)
So you're going to be targetted for looking up your representative's record?
No, you're going to be targeted for looking up your representative's record regarding the NSA.
Considering today's level of technology, does this really seem all that far fetched? A program watches the data stream, cross references the list of people who complain with what those people own, their health records, employment records, ie anything that could be used against them at some point, and if the system gets a significant enough hit, out goes the request for Judge Rubberstamp to sign some FISA warrants.
Shit, other than the back end, they probably scripted most of it over a weekend.
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Too bad they are so utterly tone-deaf that they put up a website that requires not just your zipcode but also your street address in order to look up your congressional representative's record on the NSA. Stupid web2.0 fuckheads couldn't at least include a link to a list of reps to pick from in case we didn't want to hand out our home address to god knows what data brokers? Even when I disabled noscript and disabled requestpolicy that damn lookup still wouldn't work either. Epic fucking fail.
'Full Scorecard' link at the top of the site: https://standagainstspying.org... [standagainstspying.org]
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Click "Full Scorecard." It's an interesting mix of D's and R's.
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Just enter a fake address. Or, if there is validation, enter the address of your town hall. :)
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Two thoughts (Score:1)
(1) Does the NSA really care?
(2) How much helium are they wasting with this stunt?
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Thermal airship
they are not using helium at all.
Re:Two thoughts (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.gefa-flug.de/index.... [gefa-flug.de]
Fantastic (Score:1)
Fantastic. Way to go guys. Really, bravo.
How did I end up liking something Greenpeace did? (Score:2)
THIS IS CIA COINTELPRO (Score:3)
They should have done a promo showing all the LOLCATS the NSA's put in GITMO, people'd burn the place down then.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Does no fly zones apply to objects lacking a motor or engine?
Try it and find out?
On a different note, I notice that absolutely no national news (besides Wired) is covering this, so what's the point?
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Man, people were probably murdered in your state this week that weren't reported in your local news. That doesn't make it a media conspiracy.
I've been fucking your mother, and we've been talking about throwing you out of the basement so we can make it into a sex dungeon.
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Yes they do, but that description does not apply to the Greenpeace blimp anyway. It has both an engine and a propane burner.
Re:the NSA already thought of this. (Score:4, Informative)
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Bluffdale Utah has a population of approximately 8000 residents who could at any time have seen the blimp, but the location of the site is so far to the outskirts of the city as to make it pointless.
If only someone had invented a tele-seeing apparatus— then people from all over the world could witness and converse about their protest.
Alas, such a thing does not exist, so no one even knows it happened.
Pity.
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The NSA facility sits on a hill directly to the west of I-15, it's visible to every driver traversing I-15 along with the entire population of Lehi, American Fork, Saratoga Springs, Orem and probably Provo as well.
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You seem to have forgotten that as modern Americans we have:
1) Cameras.
2) The ability to transmit photos worldwide.
3) Access to the work of reporters who can add textual context to those photos.
Even if the protest was seen by 50k people, what actually matters, is if it gets play on the internet, news papers, and/or television.
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Not really. Check the local news and plenty of residents saw it. In fact, the data center is easily visible by most in the Salt Lake and Utah Valleys.
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Score you -1 "Clueless". The purpose of the protest wasn't to be seen by people nearby - it was to generate articles and blog posts and tweets that will be seen by tens of millions.
Never Saw It (Score:1)
I drove due west straight toward the NSA center and never saw it this morning. Not very effective in that regard.
Surprised (Score:2)
mis-targeted.. (Score:3)
I can't help but think the people you really want to antagonize are the employees and contractors... A Blimp that says something like "amoral and unethical people work here and spy on you" might do more to create unrest... The people who work there probably live in the community or surrounding community... If you can make someone uneasy about their employer, that's probably better...
"NSA! "We've got NSA here!" (Score:5, Insightful)
"See? Nobody cares."
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They could say goodbye to their blimp after that though, if they even get through the security around the event. Could be worth trying with a big RC blimp that only costs 4 digits though.
R.I.P. (Score:2)
Better that it should read "U.S. commerce R.I.P. No one will use our products again."
But that would mean one of those scrolly signs and a big-ass battery.
NSA Data Center info site (Score:2)
In totalitarian USA (Score:1)
NSA will blimp you from behind.
NSA says... (Score:2)
They should do it here: (Score:2)
NRO listening post. Except there is no one around to see it.
46.682162, -120.356564
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Never mind, upon further Googling it seems that they are shutting down the Yakima Research Facility. (Or as the locals called it, the ball bearing plant.)
http://q13fox.com/2013/04/04/n... [q13fox.com]
In a 2002 interview with the Newhouse News Service, Bamford said the Yakima facility obtained about 2 million intercepts per hour at that time.