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The Hoover congress has contempt for the poor/middle class. So you have to ask *why* regarding this.
The Hoover congress is putting billions & billions of our tax dollars into this monstrosity in Utah & its satellite facilities throughout the country. If they don't care about 99% of our citizens' quality of life, ask yourself what's being "protected" -- these dollars aren't being paid by us for our benefit. Our "deficit problem" is being exploited by the Hoovers in congress to lessen our quality of life further, while the wealthiest of Americans are yachting skating by without feeling any pain. Perhaps it's a blessing in disguise that the surveillance program is raising eyebrows; we need to have a national discussion about the why's:
[font size="7"]UTAH DATA CENTER[/font]
When construction is completed in 2013, the heavily fortified $2 billion facility in Bluffdale will encompass 1 million square feet.
Source: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Conceptual Site plan
(1) Visitor control center -- A $9.7 million facility for ensuring that only cleared personnel gain access.
(2) Administration -- Designated space for technical support and administrative personnel.
(3) Data halls -- Four 25,000-square-foot facilities house rows and rows of servers.
(4) Backup generators and fuel tanks -- Can power the center for at least three days.
(5) Water storage and pumping -- Able to pump 1.7 million gallons of liquid per day.
(6) Chiller plant -- About 60,000 tons of cooling equipment to keep servers from overheating.
(7) Power substation -- An electrical substation to meet the center’s estimated 65-megawatt demand.
(8) Security -- Video surveillance, intrusion detection, and other protection will cost more than $10 million.
[font size="7"]Satellite Facilities[/font]
For the NSA, overflowing with tens of billions of dollars in post-9/11 budget awards, the cryptanalysis breakthrough came at a time of explosive growth, in size as well as in power. Established as an arm of the Department of Defense following Pearl Harbor, with the primary purpose of preventing another surprise assault, the NSA suffered a series of humiliations in the post-Cold War years. Caught offguard by an escalating series of terrorist attacks—the first World Trade Center bombing, the blowing up of US embassies in East Africa, the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, and finally the devastation of 9/11—some began questioning the agency’s very reason for being. In response, the NSA has quietly been reborn. And while there is little indication that its actual effectiveness has improved—after all, despite numerous pieces of evidence and intelligence-gathering opportunities, it missed the near-disastrous attempted attacks by the underwear bomber on a flight to Detroit in 2009 and by the car bomber in Times Square in 2010—there is no doubt that it has transformed itself into the largest, most covert, and potentially most intrusive intelligence agency ever created.
(...)
Within days, the tent and sandbox and gold shovels would be gone and Inglis and the generals would be replaced by some 10,000 construction workers. “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. The plans for the center show an extensive security system: an elaborate $10 million antiterrorism protection program, including 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.
Inside, the facility will consist of four 25,000-square-foot halls filled with servers, complete with raised floor space for cables and storage. In addition, there will be more than 900,000 square feet for technical support and administration. The entire site will be self-sustaining, with fuel tanks large enough to power the backup generators for three days in an emergency, water storage with the capability of pumping 1.7 million gallons of liquid per day, as well as a sewage system and massive air-conditioning system to keep all those servers cool. Electricity will come from the center’s own substation built by Rocky Mountain Power to satisfy the 65-megawatt power demand. Such a mammoth amount of energy comes with a mammoth price tag—about $40 million a year, according to one estimate.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/
When construction is completed in 2013, the heavily fortified $2 billion facility in Bluffdale will encompass 1 million square feet.
Source: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Conceptual Site plan
(1) Visitor control center -- A $9.7 million facility for ensuring that only cleared personnel gain access.
(2) Administration -- Designated space for technical support and administrative personnel.
(3) Data halls -- Four 25,000-square-foot facilities house rows and rows of servers.
(4) Backup generators and fuel tanks -- Can power the center for at least three days.
(5) Water storage and pumping -- Able to pump 1.7 million gallons of liquid per day.
(6) Chiller plant -- About 60,000 tons of cooling equipment to keep servers from overheating.
(7) Power substation -- An electrical substation to meet the center’s estimated 65-megawatt demand.
(8) Security -- Video surveillance, intrusion detection, and other protection will cost more than $10 million.
[font size="7"]Satellite Facilities[/font]
For the NSA, overflowing with tens of billions of dollars in post-9/11 budget awards, the cryptanalysis breakthrough came at a time of explosive growth, in size as well as in power. Established as an arm of the Department of Defense following Pearl Harbor, with the primary purpose of preventing another surprise assault, the NSA suffered a series of humiliations in the post-Cold War years. Caught offguard by an escalating series of terrorist attacks—the first World Trade Center bombing, the blowing up of US embassies in East Africa, the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, and finally the devastation of 9/11—some began questioning the agency’s very reason for being. In response, the NSA has quietly been reborn. And while there is little indication that its actual effectiveness has improved—after all, despite numerous pieces of evidence and intelligence-gathering opportunities, it missed the near-disastrous attempted attacks by the underwear bomber on a flight to Detroit in 2009 and by the car bomber in Times Square in 2010—there is no doubt that it has transformed itself into the largest, most covert, and potentially most intrusive intelligence agency ever created.
(...)
Within days, the tent and sandbox and gold shovels would be gone and Inglis and the generals would be replaced by some 10,000 construction workers. “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. The plans for the center show an extensive security system: an elaborate $10 million antiterrorism protection program, including 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.
Inside, the facility will consist of four 25,000-square-foot halls filled with servers, complete with raised floor space for cables and storage. In addition, there will be more than 900,000 square feet for technical support and administration. The entire site will be self-sustaining, with fuel tanks large enough to power the backup generators for three days in an emergency, water storage with the capability of pumping 1.7 million gallons of liquid per day, as well as a sewage system and massive air-conditioning system to keep all those servers cool. Electricity will come from the center’s own substation built by Rocky Mountain Power to satisfy the 65-megawatt power demand. Such a mammoth amount of energy comes with a mammoth price tag—about $40 million a year, according to one estimate.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/
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