The country's biggest spy center

[azmom]

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/1


The heavily fortified $2 billion center should be up and running in September 2013. Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital “pocket litter.” It is, in some measure, the realization of the “total information awareness” program created during the first term of the Bush administration—an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans’ privacy.

[SomethingFishy]

1. Here it is:

The NSA has a bunch of stuff about it on their website.. Including this bit about the storage capacity:

Data Storage Capacity
"The storage capacity of the Utah Data Center will be measured in "zettabytes". What exactly is a zettabyte? There are a thousand gigabytes in a terabyte; a thousand terabytes in a petabyte; a thousand petabytes in an exabyte; and a thousand exabytes in a zettabyte. Some of our employees like to refer to them as "alottabytes". "

I'd never even heard of a "zettabyte" before.

[Quantess]

8. It's much prettier at night.

That is absolutely massive.

[Laelth]

2. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[backscatter712]

3. The world's most intrusive search engine.

See my sig.

And do you want this facility at the beck and call of a President Cruz, or President Jeb Bush, or President Christie?

[Octafish]

4. Interesting place. Where freedom dies.

At least the parts having to do with the Bill of Rights thing, like speech and privacy.

Those interested in turning a buck on Wall Street, going by the public record, will certainly profit handsomely from what data they can mine.

[azmom]

5. This thing

is a monster. Interesting times we are living in.

[Whiskeytide]

6. "Have been" living in....

... The linked article is from March 2012. The detail is impressive. And we got..... <crickets>......

[siligut]

7. So Congress killed it in 2003.

I wonder what happened? Maybe the concern that other counties are doing the same thing? I understand the article says it is for domestic use, but there is nothing to prevent its use elsewhere.

[felix_numinous]

9. Maybe the Iraq war

-is my guess.

[reformist2]

10. I like how Congress killed in 2003, but it still found a way to be funded anyway.

And all without being reported on in the press.