The NSA Is Building The Country's Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)

The NSA Is Building the Countrys Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)
By James Bamford Email Author March 15, 2012 | 7:24 pm | Categories: Crypto, Cybersecurity, Miscellaneous, NSA, Paranoia, privacy, Surveillance
Photo: Name Withheld; Digital Manipulation: Jesse Lenz The spring air in the small, sand-dusted town has a soft haze to it, and clumps of green-gray sagebrush rustle in the breeze. Bluffdale sits in a bowl-shaped valley in the shadow of Utahs Wasatch Range to the east and the Oquirrh Mountains to the west. Its the heart of Mormon country, where religious pioneers first arrived more than 160 years ago. They came to escape the rest of the world, to understand the mysterious words sent down from their god as revealed on buried golden plates, and to practice what has become known as the principle, marriage to multiple wives.
Today Bluffdale is home to one of the nations largest sects of polygamists, the Apostolic United Brethren, with upwards of 9,000 members. The brethrens complex includes a chapel, a school, a sports field, and an archive. Membership has doubled since 1978and the number of plural marriages has tripledso the sect has recently been looking for ways to purchase more land and expand throughout the town. But new pioneers have quietly begun moving into the area, secretive outsiders who say little and keep to themselves. Like the pious polygamists, they are focused on deciphering cryptic messages that only they have the power to understand. Just off Beef Hollow Road, less than a mile from brethren headquarters, thousands of hard-hatted construction workers in sweat-soaked T-shirts are laying the groundwork for the newcomers own temple and archive, a massive complex so large that it necessitated expanding the towns boundaries. Once built, it will be more than five times the size of the US Capitol. Rather than Bibles, prophets, and worshippers, this temple will be filled with servers, computer intelligence experts, and armed guards. And instead of listening for words flowing down from heaven, these newcomers will be secretly capturing, storing, and analyzing vast quantities of words and images hurtling through the worlds telecommunications networks. In the little town of Bluffdale, Big Love and Big Brother have become uneasy neighbors. The NSA has become the largest, most covert, and potentially most intrusive intelligence agency ever. Under construction by contractors with top-secret clearances, the blandly named Utah Data Center is being built for the National Security Agency. A project of immense secrecy, it is the final piece in a complex puzzle assembled over the past decade. Its purpose: to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the worlds communications as they zap down from satellites and zip through the underground and undersea cables of international, foreign, and domestic networks. 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 trailsparking 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 administrationan effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans privacy. But this is more than just a data center, says one senior intelligence official who until recently was involved with the program. The mammoth Bluffdale center will have another important and far more secret role that until now has gone unrevealed. It is also critical, he says, for breaking codes. And code-breaking is crucial, because much of the data that the center will handlefinancial information, stock transactions, business deals, foreign military and diplomatic secrets, legal documents, confidential personal communicationswill be heavily encrypted. According to another top official also involved with the program, the NSA made an enormous breakthrough several years ago in its ability to cryptanalyze, or break, unfathomably complex encryption systems employed by not only governments around the world but also many average computer users in the US. The upshot, according to this official: Everybodys a target; everybody with communication is a target.
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 attacksthe 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 9/11some began questioning the agencys very reason for being. In response, the NSA has quietly been reborn. And while there is little indication that its actual effectiveness has improvedafter 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 2010there is no doubt that it has transformed itself into the largest, most covert, and potentially most intrusive intelligence agency ever created. In the processand for the first time since Watergate and the other scandals of the Nixon administrationthe NSA has turned its surveillance apparatus on the US and its citizens. It has established listening posts throughout the nation to collect and sift through billions of email messages and phone calls, whether they originate within the country or overseas. It has created a supercomputer of almost unimaginable speed to look for patterns and unscramble codes. Finally, the agency has begun building a place to store all the trillions of words and thoughts and whispers captured in its electronic net. And, of course, its all being done in secret. To those on the inside, the old adage that NSA stands for Never Say Anything applies more than ever.
UTAH DATA CENTER

When construction is completed in 2013, the heavily fortified $2 billion facility in Bluffdale will encompass 1 million square feet.
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 centers estimated 65-megawatt demand.
8 SECURITY
Video surveillance, intrusion detection, and other protection will cost more than $10 million. Source: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Conceptual Site plan A swath of freezing fog blanketed Salt Lake City on the morning of January 6, 2011, mixing with a weeklong coating of heavy gray smog. Red air alerts, warning people to stay indoors unless absolutely necessary, had become almost daily occurrences, and the temperature was in the bone-chilling twenties. What I smell and taste is like coal smoke, complained one local blogger that day. At the citys international airport, many inbound flights were delayed or diverted while outbound regional jets were grounded. But among those making it through the icy mist was a figure whose gray suit and tie made him almost disappear into the background. He was tall and thin, with the physique of an aging basketball player and dark caterpillar eyebrows beneath a shock of matching hair. Accompanied by a retinue of bodyguards, the man was NSA deputy director Chris Inglis, the agencys highest-ranking civilian and the person who ran its worldwide day-to-day operations. A short time later, Inglis arrived in Bluffdale at the site of the future data center, a flat, unpaved runway on a littleused part of Camp Williams, a National Guard training site. There, in a white tent set up for the occasion, Inglis joined Harvey Davis, the agencys associate director for installations and logistics, and Utah senator Orrin Hatch, along with a few generals and politicians in a surreal ceremony. Standing in an odd wooden sandbox and holding gold-painted shovels, they made awkward jabs at the sand and thus officially broke ground on what the local media had simply dubbed the spy center. Hoping for some details on what was about to be built, reporters turned to one of the invited guests, Lane Beattie of the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce. Did he have any idea of the purpose behind the new facility in his backyard? Absolutely not, he said with a self-conscious half laugh. Nor do I want them spying on me. For his part, Inglis simply engaged in a bit of double-talk, emphasizing the least threatening aspect of the center: Its a state-of-the-art facility designed to support the intelligence community in its mission to, in turn, enable and protect the nations cybersecurity. While cybersecurity will certainly be among the areas focused on in Bluffdale, what is collected, how its collected, and what is done with the material are far more important issues. Battling hackers makes for a nice coverits easy to explain, and who could be against it? Then the reporters turned to Hatch, who proudly described the center as a great tribute to Utah, then added, I cant tell you a lot about what theyre going to be doing, because its highly classified. And then there was this anomaly: Although this was supposedly the official ground-breaking for the nations largest and most expensive cybersecurity project, no one from the Department of Homeland Security, the agency responsible
for protecting civilian networks from cyberattack, spoke from the lectern. In fact, the official whod originally introduced the data center, at a press conference in Salt Lake City in October 2009, had nothing to do with cybersecurity. It was Glenn A. Gaffney, deputy director of national intelligence for collection, a man who had spent almost his entire career at the CIA. As head of collection for the intelligence community, he managed the countrys human and electronic spies. 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. Weve 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 centers 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 tagabout $40 million a year, according to one estimate. Given the facilitys scale and the fact that a terabyte of data can now be stored on a flash drive the size of a mans pinky, the potential amount of information that could be housed in Bluffdale is truly staggering. But so is the exponential growth in the amount of intelligence data being produced every day by the eavesdropping sensors of the NSA and other intelligence agencies. As a result of this expanding array of theater airborne and other sensor networks, as a 2007 Department of Defense report puts it, the Pentagon is attempting to expand its worldwide communications network, known as the Global Information Grid, to handle yottabytes (1024 bytes) of data. (A yottabyte is a septillion bytesso large that no one has yet coined a term for the next higher magnitude.) It needs that capacity because, according to a recent report by Cisco, global Internet traffic will quadruple from 2010 to 2015, reaching 966 exabytes per year. (A million exabytes equal a yottabyte.) In terms of scale, Eric Schmidt, Googles former CEO, once estimated that the total of all human knowledge created from the dawn of man to 2003 totaled 5 exabytes. And the data flow shows no sign of slowing. In 2011 more than 2 billion of the worlds 6.9 billion people were connected to the Internet. By 2015, market research firm IDC estimates, there will be 2.7 billion users. Thus, the NSAs need for a 1-million-square-foot data storehouse. Should the agency ever fill the Utah center with a yottabyte of information, it would be equal to about 500 quintillion (500,000,000,000,000,000,000) pages of text. The data stored in Bluffdale will naturally go far beyond the worlds billions of public web pages. The NSA is more interested in the so-called invisible web, also known as the deep web or deepnetdata beyond the reach of the public. This includes password-protected data, US and foreign government communications, and noncommercial filesharing between trusted peers. The deep web contains government reports, databases, and other sources of information of high value to DOD and the intelligence community, according to a 2010 Defense Science Board report. Alternative tools are needed to find and index data in the deep web Stealing the classified secrets of a potential adversary is where the [intelligence] community is most comfortable. With its new Utah Data Center, the NSA will at last have the technical capability to store, and rummage through, all those stolen secrets. The question, of course, is how the agency defines who is, and who is not, a potential adversary.
The NSAS SPY NETWORK

Once its operational, the Utah Data Center will become, in effect, the NSAs cloud. The center will be fed data collected by the agencys eavesdropping satellites, overseas listening posts, and secret monitoring rooms in telecom facilities throughout the US. All that data will then be accessible to the NSAs code breakers, data-miners, China analysts, counterterrorism specialists, and others working at its Fort Meade headquarters and around the world. Heres how the data center appears to fit into the NSAs global puzzle.J.B.
1 GEOSTATIONARY SATELLITES
Four satellites positioned around the globe monitor frequencies carrying everything from walkie-talkies and cell phones in Libya to radar systems in North Korea. Onboard software acts as the first filter in the collection process, targeting only key regions, countries, cities, and phone numbers or email.
2 AEROSPACE DATA FACILITY, BUCKLEY AIR FORCE BASE, COLORADO

Intelligence collected from the geostationary satellites, as well as signals from other spacecraft and overseas listening posts, is relayed to this facility outside Denver. About 850 NSA employees track the satellites, transmit target information, and download the intelligence haul.
3 NSA GEORGIA, FORT GORDON, AUGUSTA, GEORGIA

Focuses on intercepts from Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Codenamed Sweet Tea, the facility has been massively expanded and now consists of a 604,000-square-foot operations building for up to 4,000 intercept operators, analysts, and other specialists.
4 NSA TEXAS, LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, SAN ANTONIO

Focuses on intercepts from Latin America and, since 9/11, the Middle East and Europe. Some 2,000 workers staff the operation. The NSA recently completed a $100 million renovation on a mega-data center herea backup storage facility for the Utah Data Center.
5 NSA HAWAII, OAHU

Focuses on intercepts from Asia. Built to house an aircraft assembly plant during World War II, the 250,000-squarefoot bunker is nicknamed the Hole. Like the other NSA operations centers, it has since been expanded: Its 2,700 employees now do their work aboveground from a new 234,000-square-foot facility.
6 DOMESTIC LISTENING POSTS
The NSA has long been free to eavesdrop on international satellite communications. But after 9/11, it installed taps in US telecom switches, gaining access to domestic traffic. An ex-NSA official says there are 10 to 20 such installations.
7 OVERSEAS LISTENING POSTS

According to a knowledgeable intelligence source, the NSA has installed taps on at least a dozen of the major overseas communications links, each capable of eavesdropping on information passing by at a high data rate.
8 UTAH DATA CENTER, BLUFFDALE, UTAH

At a million square feet, this $2 billion digital storage facility outside Salt Lake City will be the centerpiece of the NSAs cloud-based data strategy and essential in its plans for decrypting previously uncrackable documents.
9 MULTIPROGRAM RESEARCH FACILITY, OAK RIDGE, TENNESSEE

Some 300 scientists and computer engineers with top security clearance toil away here, building the worlds fastest supercomputers and working on cryptanalytic applications and other secret projects.
10 NSA HEADQUARTERS, FORT MEADE, MARYLAND

Analysts here will access material stored at Bluffdale to prepare reports and recommendations that are sent to policymakers. To handle the increased data load, the NSA is also building an $896 million supercomputer center here. Before yottabytes of data from the deep web and elsewhere can begin piling up inside the servers of the NSAs new center, they must be collected. To better accomplish that, the agency has undergone the largest building boom in its history, including installing secret electronic monitoring rooms in major US telecom facilities. Controlled by the NSA, these highly secured spaces are where the agency taps into the US communications networks, a practice that came to light during the Bush years but was never acknowledged by the agency. The broad outlines of the so-called warrantless-wiretapping program have long been exposedhow the NSA secretly and illegally bypassed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which was supposed to oversee and authorize highly targeted domestic eavesdropping; how the program allowed wholesale monitoring of millions of American phone calls and email. In the wake of the programs exposure, Congress passed the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which largely made the practices legal. Telecoms that had agreed to participate in the illegal activity were granted immunity from prosecution and lawsuits. What wasnt revealed until now, however, was the enormity of this ongoing domestic spying program. For the first time, a former NSA official has gone on the record to describe the program, codenamed Stellar Wind, in detail. William Binney was a senior NSA crypto-mathematician largely responsible for automating the agencys worldwide eavesdropping network. A tall man with strands of black hair across the front of his scalp and dark, determined eyes behind thick-rimmed glasses, the 68-year-old spent nearly four decades breaking codes and finding new ways to channel billions of private phone calls and email messages from around the world into the NSAs bulging databases. As chief and one of the two cofounders of the agencys Signals Intelligence Automation Research Center, Binney and his team designed much of the infrastructure thats still likely used to intercept international and foreign communications. He explains that the agency could have installed its tapping gear at the nations cable landing stationsthe more than two dozen sites on the periphery of the US where fiber-optic cables come ashore. If it had taken that route, the NSA would have been able to limit its eavesdropping to just international communications, which at the time was all that was allowed under US law. Instead it chose to put the wiretapping rooms at key junction points throughout the countrylarge, windowless buildings known as switchesthus gaining access to not just international communications but also to most of the domestic traffic flowing through the US. The network of intercept stations goes far beyond the single room in an AT&T building in San Francisco exposed by a whistle-blower in 2006. I think theres 10 to 20 of them, Binney says. Thats not just San Francisco; they have them in the middle of the country and also on the East Coast. The eavesdropping on Americans doesnt stop at the telecom switches. To capture satellite communications in and out of the US, the agency also monitors AT&Ts powerful earth stations, satellite receivers in locations that include Roaring Creek and Salt Creek. Tucked away on a back road in rural Catawissa, Pennsylvania, Roaring Creeks three 105-foot dishes handle much of the countrys communications to and from Europe and the Middle East. And on an
isolated stretch of land in remote Arbuckle, California, three similar dishes at the companys Salt Creek station service the Pacific Rim and Asia. The former NSA official held his thumb and forefinger close together: We are that far from a turnkey totalitarian state. Binney left the NSA in late 2001, shortly after the agency launched its warrantless-wiretapping program. They violated the Constitution setting it up, he says bluntly. But they didnt care. They were going to do it anyway, and they were going to crucify anyone who stood in the way. When they started violating the Constitution, I couldnt stay. Binney says Stellar Wind was far larger than has been publicly disclosed and included not just eavesdropping on domestic phone calls but the inspection of domestic email. At the outset the program recorded 320 million calls a day, he says, which represented about 73 to 80 percent of the total volume of the agencys worldwide intercepts. The haul only grew from there. According to Binneywho has maintained close contact with agency employees until a few years agothe taps in the secret rooms dotting the country are actually powered by highly sophisticated software programs that conduct deep packet inspection, examining Internet traffic as it passes through the 10-gigabit-persecond cables at the speed of light. The software, created by a company called Narus thats now part of Boeing, is controlled remotely from NSA headquarters at Fort Meade in Maryland and searches US sources for target addresses, locations, countries, and phone numbers, as well as watch-listed names, keywords, and phrases in email. Any communication that arouses suspicion, especially those to or from the million or so people on agency watch lists, are automatically copied or recorded and then transmitted to the NSA. The scope of surveillance expands from there, Binney says. Once a name is entered into the Narus database, all phone calls and other communications to and from that person are automatically routed to the NSAs recorders. Anybody you want, route to a recorder, Binney says. If your numbers in there? Routed and gets recorded. He adds, The Narus device allows you to take it all. And when Bluffdale is completed, whatever is collected will be routed there for storage and analysis. According to Binney, one of the deepest secrets of the Stellar Wind programagain, never confirmed until nowwas that the NSA gained warrantless access to AT&Ts vast trove of domestic and international billing records, detailed information about who called whom in the US and around the world. As of 2007, AT&T had more than 2.8 trillion records housed in a database at its Florham Park, New Jersey, complex. Verizon was also part of the program, Binney says, and that greatly expanded the volume of calls subject to the agencys domestic eavesdropping. That multiplies the call rate by at least a factor of five, he says. So youre over a billion and a half calls a day. (Spokespeople for Verizon and AT&T said their companies would not comment on matters of national security.) After he left the NSA, Binney suggested a system for monitoring peoples communications according to how closely they are connected to an initial target. The further away from the targetsay youre just an acquaintance of a friend of the targetthe less the surveillance. But the agency rejected the idea, and, given the massive new storage facility in Utah, Binney suspects that it now simply collects everything. The whole idea was, how do you manage 20 terabytes of intercept a minute? he says. The way we proposed was to distinguish between things you want and things you dont want. Instead, he adds, theyre storing everything they gather. And the agency is gathering as much as it can. Once the communications are intercepted and stored, the data-mining begins. You can watch everybody all the time with data- mining, Binney says. Everything a person does becomes charted on a graph, financial transactions or travel or anything, he says. Thus, as data like bookstore receipts, bank statements, and commuter toll records flow in, the NSA is able to paint a more and more detailed picture of someones life. The NSA also has the ability to eavesdrop on phone calls directly and in real time. According to Adrienne J. Kinne, who worked both before and after 9/11 as a voice interceptor at the NSA facility in Georgia, in the wake of the World Trade Center attacks basically all rules were thrown out the window, and they would use any excuse to justify a waiver to spy on Americans. Even journalists calling home from overseas were included. A lot of time you could tell they were calling their families, she says, incredibly intimate, personal conversations. Kinne found the act of eavesdropping on innocent fellow citizens personally distressing. Its almost like going through and finding somebodys diary, she says.
In secret listening rooms nationwide, NSA software examines every email, phone call, and tweet as they zip by. But there is, of course, reason for anyone to be distressed about the practice. Once the door is open for the government to spy on US citizens, there are often great temptations to abuse that power for political purposes, as when Richard Nixon eavesdropped on his political enemies during Watergate and ordered the NSA to spy on antiwar protesters. Those and other abuses prompted Congress to enact prohibitions in the mid-1970s against domestic spying. Before he gave up and left the NSA, Binney tried to persuade officials to create a more targeted system that could be authorized by a court. At the time, the agency had 72 hours to obtain a legal warrant, and Binney devised a method to computerize the system. I had proposed that we automate the process of requesting a warrant and automate approval so we could manage a couple of million intercepts a day, rather than subvert the whole process. But such a system would have required close coordination with the courts, and NSA officials werent interested in that, Binney says. Instead they continued to haul in data on a grand scale. Asked how many communicationstransactions, in NSAs lingothe agency has intercepted since 9/11, Binney estimates the number at between 15 and 20 trillion, the aggregate over 11 years. When Barack Obama took office, Binney hoped the new administration might be open to reforming the program to address his constitutional concerns. He and another former senior NSA analyst, J. Kirk Wiebe, tried to bring the idea of an automated warrant-approval system to the attention of the Department of Justices inspector general. They were given the brush-off. They said, oh, OK, we cant comment, Binney says. Sitting in a restaurant not far from NSA headquarters, the place where he spent nearly 40 years of his life, Binney held his thumb and forefinger close together. We are, like, that far from a turnkey totalitarian state, he says. There is still one technology preventing untrammeled government access to private digital data: strong encryption. Anyonefrom terrorists and weapons dealers to corporations, financial institutions, and ordinary email senderscan use it to seal their messages, plans, photos, and documents in hardened data shells. For years, one of the hardest shells has been the Advanced Encryption Standard, one of several algorithms used by much of the world to encrypt data. Available in three different strengths128 bits, 192 bits, and 256 bitsits incorporated in most commercial email programs and web browsers and is considered so strong that the NSA has even approved its use for top-secret US government communications. Most experts say that a so-called brute-force computer attack on the algorithm trying one combination after another to unlock the encryptionwould likely take longer than the age of the universe. For a 128-bit cipher, the number of trial-and-error attempts would be 340 undecillion (1036). Breaking into those complex mathematical shells like the AES is one of the key reasons for the construction going on in Bluffdale. That kind of cryptanalysis requires two major ingredients: super-fast computers to conduct brute-force attacks on encrypted messages and a massive number of those messages for the computers to analyze. The more messages from a given target, the more likely it is for the computers to detect telltale patterns, and Bluffdale will be able to hold a great many messages. We questioned it one time, says another source, a senior intelligence manager who was also involved with the planning. Why were we building this NSA facility? And, boy, they rolled out all the old guysthe crypto guys. According to the official, these experts told then-director of national intelligence Dennis Blair, Youve got to build this thing because we just dont have the capability of doing the code-breaking. It was a candid admission. In the long war between the code breakers and the code makersthe tens of thousands of cryptographers in the worldwide computer security industrythe code breakers were admitting defeat. So the agency had one major ingredienta massive data storage facilityunder way. Meanwhile, across the country in Tennessee, the government was working in utmost secrecy on the other vital element: the most powerful computer the world has ever known. The plan was launched in 2004 as a modern-day Manhattan Project. Dubbed the High Productivity Computing Systems program, its goal was to advance computer speed a thousandfold, creating a machine that could execute a quadrillion (1015) operations a second, known as a petaflopthe computer equivalent of breaking the land speed record. And as with the Manhattan Project, the venue chosen for the supercomputing program was the town of Oak Ridge in eastern Tennessee, a rural area where sharp ridges give way to low, scattered hills, and the southwestwardflowing Clinch River bends sharply to the southeast. About 25 miles from Knoxville, it is the secret city where uranium- 235 was extracted for the first atomic bomb. A sign near the exit read: WHAT YOU SEE HERE, WHAT YOU DO HERE, WHAT YOU HEAR HERE, WHEN YOU LEAVE HERE, LET IT STAY HERE. Today, not far from where that sign stood, Oak Ridge is home to the Department of Energys Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and its engaged in a new secret war.
But this time, instead of a bomb of almost unimaginable power, the weapon is a computer of almost unimaginable speed. In 2004, as part of the supercomputing program, the Department of Energy established its Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility for multiple agencies to join forces on the project. But in reality there would be two tracks, one unclassified, in which all of the scientific work would be public, and another top-secret, in which the NSA could pursue its own computer covertly. For our purposes, they had to create a separate facility, says a former senior NSA computer expert who worked on the project and is still associated with the agency. (He is one of three sources who described the program.) It was an expensive undertaking, but one the NSA was desperate to launch. Known as the Multiprogram Research Facility, or Building 5300, the $41 million, five-story, 214,000-square-foot structure was built on a plot of land on the labs East Campus and completed in 2006. Behind the brick walls and green-tinted windows, 318 scientists, computer engineers, and other staff work in secret on the cryptanalytic applications of high-speed computing and other classified projects. The supercomputer center was named in honor of George R. Cotter, the NSAs now-retired chief scientist and head of its information technology program. Not that youd know it. Theres no sign on the door, says the ex-NSA computer expert. At the DOEs unclassified center at Oak Ridge, work progressed at a furious pace, although it was a one-way street when it came to cooperation with the closemouthed people in Building 5300. Nevertheless, the unclassified team had its Cray XT4 supercomputer upgraded to a warehouse-sized XT5. Named Jaguar for its speed, it clocked in at 1.75 petaflops, officially becoming the worlds fastest computer in 2009. Meanwhile, over in Building 5300, the NSA succeeded in building an even faster supercomputer. They made a big breakthrough, says another former senior intelligence official, who helped oversee the program. The NSAs machine was likely similar to the unclassified Jaguar, but it was much faster out of the gate, modified specifically for cryptanalysis and targeted against one or more specific algorithms, like the AES. In other words, they were moving from the research and development phase to actually attacking extremely difficult encryption systems. The codebreaking effort was up and running. The breakthrough was enormous, says the former official, and soon afterward the agency pulled the shade down tight on the project, even within the intelligence community and Congress. Only the chairman and vice chairman and the two staff directors of each intelligence committee were told about it, he says. The reason? They were thinking that this computing breakthrough was going to give them the ability to crack current public encryption. In addition to giving the NSA access to a tremendous amount of Americans personal data, such an advance would also open a window on a trove of foreign secrets. While today most sensitive communications use the strongest encryption, much of the older data stored by the NSA, including a great deal of what will be transferred to Bluffdale once the center is complete, is encrypted with more vulnerable ciphers. Remember, says the former intelligence official, a lot of foreign government stuff weve never been able to break is 128 or less. Break all that and youll find out a lot more of what you didnt knowstuff weve already storedso theres an enormous amount of information still in there. The NSA believes its on the verge of breaking a key encryption algorithmopening up hoards of data. That, he notes, is where the value of Bluffdale, and its mountains of long-stored data, will come in. What cant be broken today may be broken tomorrow. Then you can see what they were saying in the past, he says. By extrapolating the way they did business, it gives us an indication of how they may do things now. The danger, the former official says, is that its not only foreign government information that is locked in weaker algorithms, its also a great deal of personal domestic communications, such as Americans email intercepted by the NSA in the past decade. But first the supercomputer must break the encryption, and to do that, speed is everything. The faster the computer, the faster it can break codes. The Data Encryption Standard, the 56-bit predecessor to the AES, debuted in 1976 and lasted about 25 years. The AES made its first appearance in 2001 and is expected to remain strong and durable for at least a decade. But if the NSA has secretly built a computer that is considerably faster than machines in the unclassified arena, then the agency has a chance of breaking the AES in a much shorter time. And with Bluffdale in operation, the NSA will have the luxury of storing an ever-expanding archive of intercepts until that breakthrough comes along.
But despite its progress, the agency has not finished building at Oak Ridge, nor is it satisfied with breaking the petaflop barrier. Its next goal is to reach exaflop speed, one quintillion (1018) operations a second, and eventually zettaflop (1021) and yottaflop. These goals have considerable support in Congress. Last November a bipartisan group of 24 senators sent a letter to President Obama urging him to approve continued funding through 2013 for the Department of Energys exascale computing initiative (the NSAs budget requests are classified). They cited the necessity to keep up with and surpass China and Japan. The race is on to develop exascale computing capabilities, the senators noted. The reason was clear: By late 2011 the Jaguar (now with a peak speed of 2.33 petaflops) ranked third behind Japans K Computer, with an impressive 10.51 petaflops, and the Chinese Tianhe-1A system, with 2.57 petaflops. But the real competition will take place in the classified realm. To secretly develop the new exaflop (or higher) machine by 2018, the NSA has proposed constructing two connecting buildings, totaling 260,000 square feet, near its current facility on the East Campus of Oak Ridge. Called the Multiprogram Computational Data Center, the buildings will be low and wide like giant warehouses, a design necessary for the dozens of computer cabinets that will compose an exaflop-scale machine, possibly arranged in a cluster to minimize the distance between circuits. According to a presentation delivered to DOE employees in 2009, it will be an unassuming facility with limited view from roads, in keeping with the NSAs desire for secrecy. And it will have an extraordinary appetite for electricity, eventually using about 200 megawatts, enough to power 200,000 homes. The computer will also produce a gargantuan amount of heat, requiring 60,000 tons of cooling equipment, the same amount that was needed to serve both of the World Trade Center towers. In the meantime Cray is working on the next step for the NSA, funded in part by a $250 million contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Its a massively parallel supercomputer called Cascade, a prototype of which is due at the end of 2012. Its development will run largely in parallel with the unclassified effort for the DOE and other partner agencies. That project, due in 2013, will upgrade the Jaguar XT5 into an XK6, codenamed Titan, upping its speed to 10 to 20 petaflops. Yottabytes and exaflops, septillions and undecillionsthe race for computing speed and data storage goes on. In his 1941 story The Library of Babel, Jorge Luis Borges imagined a collection of information where the entire worlds knowledge is stored but barely a single word is understood. In Bluffdale the NSA is constructing a library on a scale that even Borges might not have contemplated. And to hear the masters of the agency tell it, its only a matter of time until every word is illuminated. James Bamford (washwriter@gmail.com) is the author of The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America. Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 View All
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James Bamford is the author of the The Shadow Factory: the Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America. Read more by James Bamford Tags: data center, NSA
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Mark Newell
Not very long ago..... I actually believed that I would be willing to sacrifice a bit of freedom for security. I believed that a guard or cop at the entrance to my community, checking I.D. would be better than car loads of gang members roaming through creating havoc. I once laughed at those who mistrusted the government and prepared for survival, should things go dsideways. I supported efforts by our so called "leaders" to monitor society, in search for the ever present evil. Not long ago..... I slept. I just finished building my fourth M-4. I just finished loading my 3rd case of 5.56. Today my Saiga 12 arrives. My wife has canned enough food to feed a city. I have taken great steps at a great cost to ensure that I am fully self reliant under any circumstance. I am awake. Anyone who really believes that the simple act of discussing this on the internet, has not steered electronic ears in your direction.... is sound asleep and I understand that. Someone eluded to it and I repeat this truth. In 1935 Germany... many citizens felt uneasy and sensed that doom was on the way. More laughed such talk off... show more
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Like 1 month ago 493 Likes F
Andrew Jansen
Mark, you are right, there is a storm brewing. A serious one, a very serious one. I don't know if you favor Ron Paul's views or some of them, but his crazy is a helluva lot better than Obama's and the other Reptards ones. Just saying.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Mark Newell 104 Likes F
David Wyatt
Andrew its good that you agree, but you too need more focus. STOP picking sides, stop being a dem stop being a rep and start being intelligent. The ONLY reason RP has to run under another candidacy is because the powers that be illegally lock debates to the 2 parties. If you arent one of them you arent allowed any real coverage or legitimacy. In fact its the 2 party system that is helping keep America in a holding pattern. Even with a "bipartisan effort" there is really no progress. If romney wins we are fucked, he is the worst puppet of them all, he will be a slow minded general in office and is truly a very egotistical and out of touch individual. If santorum wins we will have daily bible study, or at least thats how pathetic he seems on stage, he should quit and go run a televangelist show somewhere down south. If Ron Paul wins it will be our only slim chance to get things turned around and moving in the right direction. That being said if Ron Paul wins and acts like all the other puppets since 1963 I will truly have lost all... show more
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Andrew Jansen 81 Likes F
me1900
stop picking sides too!
o Like o 1 week ago o in reply to David Wyatt o 2 Likes oF LibertarianBob
David, what are yout feelings on the Libertarian Party? Gary Johnson is vieing for the presidential spot. He is is much, if not more, libertarian than RP (although I truel;y like RP, I have to maintain my "L" voter registration as I am a candidate for Ohio State Rep this year). Thoughts?
o Like o 3 weeks ago o in reply to David Wyatt oF unbound55
While there are some good aspects to the Libertarian Party (e.g. stances on abortion and privacy), overall, they are very naive on too many issues. They tend to focus on an open market (i.e. free and competitive market) solving many problems, but anyone who is familiar with how open markets work understands that those types of markets don't really exist anymore. You need more than a couple or even a handful of companies selling identical products to constitute actual competition. Similarly, anyone that understands what is happening with the health insurance industry (and lack of functional competition) understands that the government absolutely needs to be more involved and that a free market approach to health insurance has already shown itself to be a failure (about $0.95 of every dollar collected by health insurance companies used to be spent on health care for individuals in the 80s...that figure is now about $0.80 of every dollar and continuing to decline in the name of profit). Public education is the key to providing equal opportunity to everyone to be able to even think about achieving the American dream. It isn't perfect, but how does a free market actually support the real goal of... show more
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Like 1 week ago in reply to LibertarianBob 8 Likes
nmk24
I too live in Ohio. I am about to graduate. If you would need any help with your campaign, I would be more than willing to help.
o o o o o BillRind
Like 2 weeks ago in reply to LibertarianBob 3 Likes F
this place needs to be burned down or dismantled by the same ones who erected it. if we Americans allow this to continue, it will be to our detriment. this entire war on terror is a fraud of the highest order and is high crimes being perpetrated on the Americans people for control.
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ch1nish
Only if you have a lot to hide. Maybe you should leave. A bunch of other countries do this too.
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o 1 month ago o in reply to BillRind o 2 Likes oF Ricardo Santos
Your logic is flawed. You are basically saying two things: - Is ok to allow A to do wrong because B also do wrong. - Is ok to allow A to spy on you and treat you like a criminal because you got nothing to hide. Sorry, but that doesn't fly. Is the responsibility of the citizens of each country to keep their government in check. The government of China is the concern of the Chinese people. Just as the government of the USA is the concern of the people of the USA. When a government breaks its constitution, it becomes illegitimate. Law is the power of government. Law is the consent of the governed to be govern. The constitution is the agreement or consent. When the agreement is broken by government there is no moral reason AT ALL for their citizens to obey government rules. As the moment they overstepped their constitutional bounds, the moment the rules stopped being laws. Governments are the #1 cause of murdering of civilians all over the world. No other organization has ever being close. Not even church. Thus only a fool would blindly trust them. Is the duty of the people of each... show more
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2 weeks ago in reply to ch1nish 33 Likes F
LibertarianBob
We are not "a bunch of other countries", ch1nish. Our founding fathers envisioned something different than other countries. It's called freedom. If you give up liberty for security you deserve neither.
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to ch1nish 44 Likes F
Jay Beswick
Amen! NSA is already harvesting emails and internet searches. What does any private citizen really know?
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Like 1 week ago in reply to LibertarianBob 1 Like F
jshirts
Actually, this is exactly what our founding fathers wanted; a country ruled by the "responsible men" in which the population must be manipulated and controlled to serve the needs of their wealthy masters.
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Like 1 week ago in reply to LibertarianBob 1 Like F
Even if you have nothing to hide, do you like being treated as if you do have something to hide? Think of it, the Government will have access to any intimate conversation, email, or conversation you have ever had with others. They will know where you have went on vacation, where you shop, and everything else about you! All this because some terrorists from a foreign land has attacked on our own soil. Now we are treated as possible terrorists.
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Jay Beswick
As an Independent I trust neither side to far. Obama has used Presidential Powers to a point that it is scary! Now NSA's Bluffdale operation in Utah, would be equally scary under a Mitt Romney occupation, if he to exercised Presidential powers. Bluffdale is home to the AUB or Allred Fundementalist polygamist. A bias to ignore that religious past an example of selective tolerance. I feel less safe, if it were Obama, but its to much power when used on U.S. soil, to monitor U.S.
citizens. I have been to Bluffdale, I have lived in Utah, and I have seen the governments abuse of power and this makes me very nervous.
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Like 1 week ago in reply to Dave 2 Likes F
LEE HANSON
NWO---WAKE UP NOW!!!!
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Like 1 week ago in reply to ch1nish 1 Like F
Mike Adams
I am sure that everyone who died in the planes and the towers on 9-1-1 were absolutlety convinced that the whole thingy was just a hoax and some director would come in and yell "CUT" at the last second so they wouldn't all die a burning, crushing , horrible, death. I guess you were there director and you were just a Little late tat day. Darnm that old watch anyway!
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to BillRind o 2 Likes oF
arlenejohnson
There were no people on those planes on 9/11. Indeed 2 of those planes didn't even fly that day. I would list all of the articles that I have published proving that 9/11 was America's version of the Reichstag fire, but will simply direct you to http://www.truedemocracy.net/t... instead in hope that you will also look through the editions that I have published since December 2001 to see all of the other articles that I have also published on that inside job. Then, if you want to know about the NSA, read http://www.truedemocracy.net/t... because the NSA is a shadow government agency just as the CIA and FBI are not to mention many of the other agencies and organizations that exist in our country. Peace, Arlene Johnson Publisher/Author
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Mike Adams 19 Likes F
Adam2323
I guess all the families of the survivors were faked. It's disgusting how you cheapen that event by effectively calling these family members liars. And for those idiots who said no planes hit the tower, were the witnesses faked too? A friend of a friend watched a plane smack into a tower. Maybe she worked for Bush or a retinal projector put the image into her eyes, or maybe she was lying to get attention. Or maybe, crazy as this sounds, she really did see a plane hit the tower. And perhaps there really are Islamic radicals who hate the US enough to do this.
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Like 2 weeks ago in reply to arlenejohnson 17 Likes F
TurtleShroom
My gosh. How can you fabricate real people with existing families? How can you fabricate every last voice, the thousands of eyewitnesses that saw the planes, the air traffic controllers that watched this plane veer correctly, the pilots that got in the plane, the boarding data, the ticket entries... Isn't it just easier to say that 9/11 is 100% real, and that the government just ignored prior warnings to get a casus belli? Why assume it's an inside job when it could just as easily be a real threat that the government deliberately ignored to get an excuse? Occam's Razor, anyone?
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bruceifer
get a f-inf life i guess that you think that nobody was it the buildings eater. tell that to their survivors bitch
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ShaddsSoulmate
I haven't even gone to your website and I already agree with you, Arlene, that there were no people on those planes because NO PLANES hit the towers! Some kind of missiles were used. The footage the mainstream media showed the world of the "planes" hitting the towers had already been altered. Many NYC observers on the ground on 9/11 told reporters they saw "NO PLANES!" I have done intensive research myself on this subject, so this is not crazy at all! And yes, definitely the NSA is part of the "shadow gov't." Thanks for being courageous and telling the truth!
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watchdogbill
What about that one that was stuffed into the PA field? No people on that one either? How do you account for that plane? I do believe the one that hit the Pentagon was not even the aircraft they claimed it was
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Jay Beswick
I think the enemy took credit for the attack! While I am concerned about the Stellar Wind facility, I do marvel at conspiracy theorist, so much so that for 15 years I have used the alias or "handle" of fincenMIB, F.I.N.C.E.N. a DOJ agency blamed for the humorous black helicopters and MIB for the movie that used the same humor. It reminds me of the FLDS that believe we never walked on the moon, yet the former leader Rulon Jeffs was on the board of directors to Hydrapak who made the ill fated o-rings that failed. Some have wondered if misinformation by conspiracy theorist have actually led to a general disinterest by the public, assuming most alarmist are crackpots too! In 911 real people died, real FBI agents warned of a crisis potential and real agencies did not assess that threat seriously. The Jewish holocaust was real too! Aliens & UFO's! Well I'll let the rest debate that....
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Like 1 week ago in reply to arlenejohnson 2 Likes F
arlenejohnson
There were no passengers on those planes on 9/11. Indeed, 2 of those ploanes didn't even fly that day. Instead of my listing all of the articles that I have published exposing that 9/11 was an inside job, I will simply direct you to http://www.truedemocracy.net/n... in hope that you will continue to read the articles that I published after that edition which I published in December 2001. Then, to know what the NSA really is, log onto http://www.truedemocracy.net/t... since the NSA is a shadow government agency.
Peace, Arlene Johnson Publisher/Author http://www.truedemocracy.net To access the rest of my work, click on the icon that says Magazine.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Mike Adams 12 Likes F
classicfit
After the Nazi death camps were captured by the Allies, Eisenhower ordered them to be photographed and documented because he knew that at some point in the future, some idiot deniers would attempt to argue against the obvious. Get the parallel here, Ms. Johnson? Now go put your tinfoil hat back on and shut up. You're making a fool of yourself.
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geepers
Over half the American population knows that 9/11 did not happen the "official bush conspiracy" way. The media is totally complicit also, as their little weird freak story was posted by about noon that day and has never changed.
If someone has complete irrefutable EVIDENCE based on FACT (that can be completely verified) that what happened that day was how Bush said it happened...Please submit that evidence. Otherwise, these war criminals should be rounded up, and there are plenty of them. Let's get the media for its complicity. Especially the BBC that was reporting the collapse of building 7 before it collapsed! Anyone that says it happens like bush says, are simply lying.
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geepers
Also Arlene, you can't fool us. The 'no planes' and no people garbage has been circulated to keep non-thinking Americans believing that the "truth" movement is bogus and based on "conspiracy" whacko junk, when physicists, engineers, and other professionals have shown why the planes hitting could not have been what brought these down. There were planes all right.
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LSKY
There is a place for people like you, Arlene - is called an insane asylum. What in the h do you publish and/or author? It can't be fit to wrap fish guts in.
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starchild
Mike - So under what circumstances do you think it's okay for government to initiate force or commit fraud, and why?
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Like 4 weeks ago in reply to Mike Adams 9 Likes F
terryterra_ism
yes I too am in favor of Ron Paul, So many instructors/professors have his Name on their vehicles at the college. See intelligent people are the ones backing up Ron, so I don't think that he will win. This country voted for 2 Bush's! That shows you were this country is at. I voted for Nader not Obama. OOH... he is an idiot who hasn't done a damn thing. I doubt that he killed Ole'Ben Laden, he is too close to the Bushes family. They Probably are funding him some place like the mansion they said they got him from. You with the damn ego of our military that they would be carrying his head on a stick singing "ding dong the witch is dead. C'mon are we to believe that they could not even get some big glossy photos, cell phone pictures? NADA (nothing) ? Y ou betcha bottom dollar!
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Like 4 weeks ago in reply to Andrew Jansen 18 Likes F
usedtobesupermom
I voted for Nader too. It would be great if it was Paul / Nader or Paul / Kucinich-it would be a good balance.
o Like o 4 weeks ago o in reply to terryterra_ism o 10 Likes oF Rhetorikol
Nader and Ron respect each other's differences, this is why they don't run together yet support each other. I worked on Nader's presidential campaign in 2008, it was a big eye opener and one of the greatest tragedies to see how closed people were to a third party candidate. It's sad the modern state of affairs.
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Like 1 week ago in reply to usedtobesupermom F
usedtobesupermom
I also helped campaign for him in the 2008 election. I had to do it from home using my computer & phone- but I did what I could. You got to meet Ralph Nader? Awesome if you did. He's done so much for us- & little by little they have tried to undo everything that he & his Raiders fought so hard for.
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Like 1 week ago in reply to Rhetorikol F
panjok2, I am a regular guy!! I love my country but I am worried about the direction it is heading in! I read a lot of political news and leave comments to relieve my stress and anger at how much of our freedoms have been takin from us, while most Americans don't seem to care! On the other side I love music and going to concerts! Spending time with my wife and family! Working around the house and planting a big garden in the summer!
Andrew, I think you might have been caught up in the whole mess as many others have! The reason I say this is because you think Ron Paul's ideas are crazy! The truth is that for so long our politicians have been steering us towards crazier and even more cazier things! They now have the right to take any citizen they think is a threat and put them away... for ever... without a lawyer and no key to get out! The mere fact that this article is telling us of a super computer that is basically hacking U.S. citizens emails! All this tells me that our politicians have been doing such crazy things for so long that when someone comes along with simple ideas....we all think it is crazy! Ron Paul's ideas aren't crazy at all! They have twisted everyone's perception of what reality is and what crazy is! Thank you for supporting Ron Paul but please realize his ideas aren't radical at all! What we have now is radical! Also please tell me this....if they can build a computer that can do all this...then why can't they build one that would rig an election? the answer is THEY CAN!... show more
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watchdogbill
It's hard for the average person that has always trusted the media to believe that they are all on the worng side. Actually, if this were really still America, we would have FCC void their licenses as they (most all ) have violated their oath by being extremely and openly biased. People are like sheep, easily led by the sly and cunning deceivers onn both sides of the aisle. You are correct, media, DemonRats and Republicans have made Ron Paul out to be a nut case because they fear anyone that will upset their GODD OL'BOY network! How many will ever vote for a black man now after this side show? I supported cain but almost everyone universally said the saem thing, "I'll never make that mistake again"! And that because of the way Obama has both played the race card and proven himslef to be an outright, undeniable RACIST himslef! I feel very sorry for the lemmings because they cannot discern right from worng and wouldn't be able to spot a liar and deciever if they fell over one. Jim Jones knew all about them! Things went his way until one Congressman smelled a rat! America will never be... show more (Edited by author 4 weeks ago)
o Like o 4 weeks ago o in reply to panjok2 o 10 Likes oF BenjaminF
CLASSIC EDUCATED US DOLTS I CALL THEM LATENT INTELLECTUALS...EDUCATED BY FAUX NEWS THE GREAT CREATOR OF EMPOWERED IDIOTS WHO FLUNKED OUT OF HS AND NOW WANT TO EDUCATE ERR UM PARROT THE PATRIOTIC HORSE PUCKY THEY MEMORIZE FROM ROVE MN MURDOCH YHE 2 EVIL DEMONS IN USA --TRAITORS THUGS N PUNKS....SHOULD BE IN JAIL..
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Like 4 weeks ago in reply to watchdogbill 2 Likes F
ch1nish
Wrong. All GOP are crazy scum
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to panjok2 o 9 Likes oF tazdelaney
i'm truly sorry to have to now say that... i once thought the same of ron paul, though always preferred the last decent man in congress, dennis kucinich, now out of office due to GOP redistricting that pitted him against the also very popular lady rep next to his region... all wife and i knew of that we very much disapproved of paul was his having worked to bet the ERA and his fight against women's reproductive rights... but then it all started coming out into the light... the viciously racist newsletters he then stupidly knowing a thing about... and his hatred of gays
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watchdogbill
Dennis Kucinich...isn't he the air head weasel that demeaned and insulted our fighting men? He ignores his own incredibly anti-American President while filing for impeachment of Bush? If you think Kucinich is a good man because he went after Bush...you are seriously mistaken. People like him (Kucinich) are the problem with America, not the solution. The proof of that? Obama has committed more impeachable acts than anyone in American history, but the little weasel is quiet about his own brood of snakes. A rat is a rat even if he did one thing you approved of. Reproductive rights?...close the legs! Killing babies is murder in God's eyes. As far as I could tell, Ron Paul does not HATE gays. He refuses to condone their lifestyle and their intense endeavour to destroy the American family with absurdly destructive "gay rights". Ron Paul expresses what the Bible states, "love the sinner, hate the sin" that doesn't mean HATE the sinner, but it also conversely does not mean that we are to allow them to run over us and change the order that God created, spreading a deviant behavior they want to justify. I have gay friends and a gay... show more
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to tazdelaney o 23 Likes oF tazdelaney
well, even the vicious mass-murderer of 'indians' george washington said when retiring that, quote, "a democratic society cannot long exist in the presence of a standing army." 235 years of standing army ago... and as the genocidal 'indian wars' only officially ended in 1900 when all but one million of the estimated 15 million who lived here prior to the arrival of us good white 'christians' invaded in 1492... and those put into concentration camps claled 'reservations.' of 235 years US history, 200 have been endless wars! and you can only call the other 35 peace if you consider that the backing of such vicious tyrants as the following can be called 'peaceable'...
despite it being opposed by 63% of americans & 80% of spaiards, the USG backed fascist franco 1935-1977; overthrew the new non-theocratic democracy of iran to preserve BP Oil monopoly theere the installed the brutal shah into 1978; hired an assassin for CIA name of saddam hussein back 1959 then installed him into power, trained his torturing secret police at fort benning's notorious 'school of the americas' and armed him to the teeth 1965-1989 through the iran-iraq war... then killed another 2 million to 'liberate' the iraqis... show more
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Like 1 month ago in reply to watchdogbill 42 Likes F
BenjaminF
Taz- I would have to say that few people in one rant-not fair to I CANT Call it a rant actually, it was simply an enormously long reply which was probably the best history brief I have ever heard listing virtually every foreign policy blunder that has blown up in our faces and is the actual face of what went wrong when Truman misguidedly created the NSA and then CIA when the Roswell incident forced his hand. He wrote an op-ed a year after Kennedy got Sonny Corleoned saying he had only created the CIA as a temporary solution to problems related to issues he needed addressed and NEVER EVER meant them to become a virtual 4th branch of government operating with impunity to laws and the President's will...and course the attempt to dissolve said CIA a year before the op-ed in NY times by Truman (I mean he pretty well tells us it was the CIA no with the op-ed or at least says he thinks so) at the Dallas Book Depository by 2 guys from the grassy knoll and either an explosive out of the dash or one of the secret service agents that were "off duty"Kennedy's entire detail... show more
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Like 4 weeks ago in reply to tazdelaney 7 Likes F
Han van der Heide
I read that book, 'war is a racket' as pdf. (I sure hope it was copyright free). The guy was really on to something and I agree it should be mandatory reading material (perhaps an audio book is in order as some of the US recruits are illiterate) Edit: hot d@mn, you sure stirred up a hornests nest. Can't we all get along :p
(Edited by author 4 weeks ago)
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tazdelaney
yes, free PDF i've issued far&wide and shd've given link to... yes, and they aren't alone at all... the decline in quality of US 'educational system' is shocking. consider that a 2007-8 US DoEd study of senior year students found that in actuality, just68 pages of history truly read by the average grad... hence, total history read in all of school to that point perhaps 350pgs? and these who understand virtually zero background of issues around them are seen as capable of reasoning who they should vote for? 9% didn't know even where the US of A is on a map without names! 32% ditto re UK! over 80%, after all these TV-war decades haven't a clue where iraq-afpak-
vietnam-yemen are. only 47% believe in evolution or even who the fuck darin was... that is half what it was in 197 and half what is now the case in china! perhaps the most shocking is that the average american's *working* vocabulary of 1950 was 4550 words. now down to just1570 last i read (harper's index of about 2003) now get this, famous koko the gorilla who could even use the F-stop on her very own nikon (me?, could sign-language over 1800... show more
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Like 4 weeks ago in reply to Han van der Heide 7 Likes F
watchdogbill
Very interesting, thanks for takling this much time. I am going to re-read this again. Indeed, America has had a history of backing and supporting goovermin's we should not have been involved in. Obama attacked Bush for doing this (but the reality is that he has done EXACTLY what he blamed Bush for only much worse. He took sides with the Muslim Bortherhood and they are notorious enemies of ours. Involvment in foreign nations politics has happened all too often in history) and yes, I believe wars are planned before they are started and that if we put the family and the men who decide to war, right up front, we would see less of that horror. People like me have had to do their war'ing for them while they sit back and make so-called "hard decisions", yea right! Compared to what? Ron Paul would stop that and I believe he really will do what he says. BTW, Schwatrzkopf lied to Congress and America when he said Saddam did not use chemicals on our troops. He lost my respect because they apparently threatened him to say that or else. He foresaked his fighting men! This is what government does and... show more (Edited by author 4 weeks ago)
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tazdelaney
i so admire what no less than julius caear had to say to his men, that civlian casualties are atrocities and that none should fight for a coward won't risk life at the front beside them. had i my way, that would simpley be law henceforth. and i also think that it is clear & obvious that ANY GOVERNMENT THAT POSSESSES A SINGLE WEAPON OF MASS CIVILIAN DEATH IS A *ROGUE TERROR STATE* MUST BE EMBARGOED, BLOCKADED, OVERTHROWN, DISARMED & DISARMED THEREAFTER as germany/japan rightly were at that war's end. of note that that war lasted just 4 years for us. since then, the praetorians and moneymen have wanted endless wars; none of which peoples have done a damn thing to the american people; each of which based entirely upon lies; all being essentially 'unwinnable.' i mean, what does the word 'victory' even mean in the context of iraq or afpak-yemen, et alia? but hey, there's bucks in every body bag... regardless how small the body inside it is, right? as a rad lefty rebel all my life and longer... it may seem odd irony that i believe the best, & one of the only, decent men who ever sat... show more
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sukijones
TAZ - Geez... Absolutely one of the best posts/history briefs (to borrow Benjamin's description below) I have ever been privileged to read! Serendipity at the right time... I very seldom come here because I have a subscription to this mag - but I was checking to see if this piece was online so I could send the link to a friend. DemocracyNow just did the Part 2 of the interview with Drake and Radack. Do you write elsewhere/for a living? p.s. will you marry me? :)
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to tazdelaney 1 Like F
usedtobesupermom
thank you. :)
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Martin Rees
Finest history lesson I've ever read, Taz. Not much wrong with that at all and it reveals the total hypocrisy at work from it's founding to its recent past for the USA in devastating detail. What the Brits, French & Spanish started, the new USA just carried it on. Your bit about the homeless veterans is familiar for those that fought in the Falklands. Apparently, more Falklands veterans have now committed suicide since the war than were killed in it! I imagine the same thing's happening in the US.
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watchdogbill
Can you aim me where I can find more details about Washington being a "MASS" Indian Killer. I thought I knew his history right from the beginning through the French & Indian thing.
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sukijones
oops, that wasn't supposed to have posted in this spot. i'd edited it and meant for it to be in reply to your first post above. now it's a bit of a duplicate... mea culpa
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to tazdelaney F
Mo
GOOD JOB! (HERE COME THE SLAMS-LOL)
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to tazdelaney F
tazdelaney
thnx guy
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to Mo F
Jeffrey Baughman
Oh lovely, another paranoid homophobe who just cant deal with the social changes that he is powerless to stop. Scum.
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simeon jeppsen
Dems and Rep's may as well be crypts and bloods. They do the exact same thing in practice and even share the same color schemes, but one always thinks the other is the reason for all woes. Obama is just a bizarro world Bush, everything is a visual and audio opposite except for actual policy and actions.
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Like 4 weeks ago in reply to Jeffrey Baughman 9 Likes F
watchdogbill
In other words...God is a Homophobe to you! Indeed, I am powerless to stop the End Times. BTW, I can hardly picture anything more sickening and disgusting that what they do to each other. They can do whatever they like to each other but they should not force it on the rest of us...and THAT is what they do,many of then shove it in our faces...they want acceptance. It's replulsive. Sorry, it was and will always be an abomination in God's eyes..God doesn't change His mind with the times. Like I said, your problem is with God, not me!
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TurtleShroom
What's truly scum is forcing a destructive, perverted lifestyle into the mainstream by the strong-armed power of the courts.
Ever noticed the LBGT movement NEVER wins in the court of public opinion? Ever noticed when the opposition tries to counter it with their own facts, their own opinions or studies, or anything, they get shouted down as a "bigot" and a "homophobe"? Listen, the queers are winning because they are louder and know how to cheat. If you can't convince the people to change, you have to force them to, and that is what the LGBT movement is doing in our courthouses and with their big Hollywood money. It's as simple as that.
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ch1nish
Yes, Republicans are scum.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Jeffrey Baughman 4 Likes F
Han van der Heide
Where you say 'god says it's despicable etc', don't you mean the people whose words ended up in the bible thought it despicable? I suggest you read up on how the bible, gods words as you say, was composed.
Oh, by the way, as Lots daughters had sex with their father, does that mean incest is okay according to gods words? Sure, there were extenuating circumstances, after all, they thought there bloodline was in danger of dying out, but still... Wake up and realise the bible is a book, written by fallible mortal people.
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watchdogbill
I assume you thought you had the last word on this but my reply was moderated apparently because I put a URL path in the post and mentioned the Savior by name instead of as a swear word. The bible has been positively proven the exact word of God the Creator, thru the hand of man. You are behind the information curve. I realize you do not know this but neither do most Americans because media has not promoted this knowledge. If you would really like to see proof, go to Amazon and order a copy of The Mysterious Bible Codes by Grant Jeffery. That book has the proof. Wake up and smell the coffee. God put secreted codes in the bible that could only be discovered in this computer age and we know that Moses did not have a wood fired computer. To assume something so absurd, that God condones incest because He included that story (and many others that illustrate how sinful men are and how in need of a Savior we all are) in His bible, is illogical. To those who thought this was pretty cute from Mr. Han...I feel sorry for you because I knpow exactly where you... show more
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to Han van der Heide 1 Like F
ch1nish
Wrong. Obama IS AMERICAN and IS the best president we ever had. You're paranoid because you're a despicable republican with much to hide.
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elh99
Dude, you are flipping' misguided. Obama was 'picked' ( and your vote had NOTHING to do with it ) as a blinder for the foolish. The central banks, 'the intellectual elite' (as they coin themselves - also cited in Einsenhower & Kennedy speeches), the Bilderberger's, etc. are running this country through an unelected agenda. It isn't about being a Dem or Rep anymore brother. I could write a book like watchdogbill but I suspect you won't be open minded enough to research any of the proposed facts or hypotheses yourself. Doing so would bring you to your 'own' conclusions, thru proper diligent research instead regurgitating the nightly propaganda. You really should do some substantial reading. You will be amazed by what you will learn. There are many intelligent people in this country who are not fooled and they truly do care for our collective futures, not just their own. As to our civil liberties, you definitely are way off the mark. There isn't much else say to you about it accept read and learn my friend.
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watchdogbill
Obama is a Communist and a racist and he proves it daily. You've been fooled and that makes you a fooI I guess. How much of a handout are you getting? BTW...I'm not a Republican. If you think Obama is great, then you too are a Communist! I'll seriously pay your one way ticket to Cuba where you would love the politics! Americans belong in America, Comminists belong in China, Russia, Cuba places like that! Take your goofy idealism somewhere else.
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mack wilson
Look at your spelling...! no doubt your a under educated democrat that has NO idea what really is going on. Just because you a lazy piece of Sh!T doesn't mean you need to try and hold everyone else back for achieving what they worked hard for. When you see that guy driving the Mercedes Benz and you wonder how he got it... well he worked for it and I GUARANTEE HE DIDN'T VOTE FOR OBAMA!
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Like 2 weeks ago in reply to ch1nish F
FRED LONG2
As in neighborhood watchdog? Armed and dangerous fools abound.
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watchdogbill
you remind me of the frog in the pot of water, by the time you realize the tempertaure is going up...it will be too late to jumnp out of it! There is no fool worse than the media brainwashed lemmings that follow the pied piper off the pier!
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Like 4 weeks ago in reply to FRED LONG2 5 Likes F
watchdogbill
More like a watchdog over our Constitution which is being destroyed by this administration!
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to FRED LONG2 F
Craigh00000
I believe in a kind and compasionate God. I also believe he made us the way we are, whether others among us like it or not. To believe that all is affected by God goes against the very reason he supposedly created us and dumped Lucifer in Hell. Because he wanted us to have free will. The free will to do or believe whatever we want as long as it doesn't harm another. I do not like what watchdog has to say, but I will defend his right to say it. And by the way, If the human race is over 40,0000 years old and we have had so many dofferent gods in that time, why would we assume this one is the "real" one? As for the government. It needs to be completely revamped under the laws of the constitution, the only true laws in the United States. I fear that the current government is driving us off a cliff. But I am terrified that someone like watchdog would have control instead. By the way, the famous quote is wrong, it should read "ignorance is the root of all evil."
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Abner Malady
Oh brother. Yer prolly just a fake mole. Anybody who hides behind yelling "AntiAmerican!" is a mole, or just to old. Die, old man. Or mole, piss off.
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Like 4 weeks ago in reply to watchdogbill 1 Like F
watchdogbill
Indeed I am old. Old enough to remember and fear Communism and that is exactly where we are headed if he gets a second term. he is just waiting to cut loose. BTW, how do you figure I am hiding? Anyone that grinds his heel into the Constitution is an anti-American and anyone who condones that for his agenda is also an anti-American! there are plenty of countries that are already what you want, go there and be happy!
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Like 4 weeks ago in reply to Abner Malady 9 Likes F
50srock
You wouldn't happen to come from Kansas, would you ?
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Like 2 weeks ago in reply to watchdogbill F
watchdogbill
No...but I did crash land there when they shoved me out of the space ship...and I lost one ruby slipper...have you seen it?
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Like 2 weeks ago in reply to 50srock 3 Likes F
starchild
I don't think Ron Paul hates gays or is a racist. Some offensive comments were published in his newsletter written by other people years ago. I think these are things people say to divert attention away from his message of freedom. Even if he was, his agenda is still pro-freedom, which is what matters the most. If you have freedom, then racists and bigots don't have power over you, and you are not forced to subsidize them or their agenda. That's the Big Government model that Ron Paul is trying to take us away from. The rest of the establishment party politicians want to use the power of government to push one agenda or another. Dr. Paul really wants to get the power back to the people. I'm sorry if you don't see it this way.
(Edited by author 4 weeks ago)
o Like o 4 weeks ago o in reply to tazdelaney o 5 Likes oF tazdelaney
wish that were the case but, star, i read it. we aren't talking about just a little bit; burned my eyes with tears both sad & angered. what i liked about paul was that he fought the wars & torture; against the utterly unconstitutional drugwar (requires an amendment like the other big success, 'prohibition,' the 18th... & 21st...); & sees the corporatist oligarchs for what they are. what i could never abide in him, however, was his having seriously worked to help stop the ERA which failed by one miserable state... always fights against women's reproductive rights as if our bodies belong to the friggin state. ownership & sole control of one's own flesh is even more basic than freedom of expression.
abortion is a disgusting *necessity.* but as germaine greer rightly said, "were it men who got pregnant, abortion would always have been a sacred right and rite.' in an age when contraception is universally available and inexpensive, it takes two very irresponsible people to have an unwanted pregnancy. as such, in cases other than rape, i believe an abortion should be followed up with a short period of community service (work for orphans, children?) but if there's one... show more
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Like 4 weeks ago in reply to starchild 1 Like F
Karbinight Ind
He has said he did not write those letters. But I guess the MSM you watch would not report that.
o Like o 3 weeks ago o in reply to tazdelaney o 1 Like oF tazdelaney
and for the record, while i daily keep up with the brainwashington propaganda of such as the times & WaPo, spent 40 years learning to discern information from misinformation or disinformation. yep, i can still be fooled sometimes, but in this case? he used to belong to a country club that refused black & jews. check out his congressional voting record as regards women, racial equality, gay rights. he recently went on record as thinking the
'voting rights act of 1964' was unconstitutional. and in that he's actually correct... according to that document, a freed black former slave's vote is worth 2/3 a white MAN'S.
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to Karbinight Ind 3 Likes F
tazdelaney
again, seeing is believing and those newsletters, several, were paid for by paul and his initial story that a woman wrote them has been negated by her. it is a done deal and his denial speaks volumes. a great man admits to his wrongs and seeks to make amends. you may and shall believe as you will. seems you could hold them in your hand & still refuse. old saying, 'don't get too close to your heroes.'
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to Karbinight Ind F
Yiyita
Main thing is the data collection depository of the latter day saints. Super pacs etc...it is a 1984 scenario...weird..more organized than McCarthy era...I am concerned about one candidate with the bucks more than others. We are talking belief in religious salvation based on ancestral and " other" It makes sense re data base...
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Like 3 weeks ago
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in reply to tazdelaney F
tazdelaney
bizarre as it is, am doing my level best to make a genuine run for the white house as a true member of the 99%. i do have vision-solutions-plans unlike any of the demgop thugs. more likely to get myself assassinated but so what. old soul, been there; done that. USG holds some 440 pages per slave; most of us wd find it hard to write that much on our selves, lives, right? 35 million documents 'top secret' per year. 22 secretist cabals like NRO_NSA_CIA_FBI_DIA_NIA_AIA_AFIA_ATF_DHS_TSA_ETC know which hand we use for masturbation and what we like to look at while doing so... lennon: "there's nazis in the bathroom, just below the stairs" 4 articles at MIT techreview's daily emergingtech update in past 3 years about the rapid 'advance' in mind-reading and 'thought'-implanting technologies. DARPA, of course, working with it. director of japanese lab showed raw text and rough images grabbed direct from the brain... says photographic res by 2015; real-time full-color video by 2020 or before. french lab working to do this all wirelessly via satellite! send words with such solidity, the person believes they thought it themselves wake up a mormon who now votes republican? hey, as a... show more
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to Yiyita F
Wrong. Obama is the best president we ever had.
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watchdogbill
brain dead lemming
o Like o 4 weeks ago o in reply to ch1nish o 17 Likes oF simeon jeppsen
As long as you want to predator missile a US citizen in 30 minutes or less or your obituary is free, then yes he is the best president
o Like o 4 weeks ago o in reply to ch1nish o 12 Likes oF Taza12
You need to get your head out of the sand and pay attention to what he is attempting to do to this country!
o Like o 3 weeks ago o in reply to ch1nish o 4 Likes oF arlenejohnson
Kennedy was the best president we ever had. That's why he's dead. Obama signed the NDAA because he is a puppet of Rothschild. When he signed that piece of trash into law, he committed treason.
o Like o 3 weeks ago o in reply to ch1nish o 3 Likes oF TurtleShroom
Treason is defined by our Constitution as "declaring war on the United States or adhering to their enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort". Established by two witnesses, you can convict a man for that. How did Obama, in signing the NDAA (which blatantly violates the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Amendments) commit treason? Sure, it's a high crime and misdemeanor (impeachment) to screw the Constitution like that, but you folks seem to throw treason around like a kid throws his toys.
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That is why he is using our Constitution like toilet paper. If the Govt was really concerned about our safety as in terrorism? They would question the 5 Social Security Numbers of the Michelle Obama, and His 2 one of a dead guy. Then they would worry about the boarders? ? ? ?
o Like o 1 week ago o in reply to ch1nish oF cm3kz0ut
The problem with your argument is that the same argument has been used for over 150 years. Seriously, there is absolutely no difference in what you're saying than I heard in my hippie days in Marin from the guys in Madrone Canyon in the 80's. Nothing.
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glockstr
Never in history has the US government expressed the right to assassinate an american citizen until now. The US government has also claimed to right to indefinitely detain and American citizen without trial. Obama just recently (past two days) signed an executive order that allows the US government to seize your personal property without due cause in times of emergency. We're in trouble.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to cm3kz0ut 112 Likes F
Ted Blackwell
WHERE WAS ALL THE MEDIA COVERAGE OF THIS IMPORTANT EVENT? I'm 60 years old, my children are grown, and as King Leonidas of Sparta said when the Persians demanded they surrender their weapons: "Come and take it". Best pack a lunch,guys. It's going to be a very long day. Nothing I have belongs to the government no matter what the executive order says or which Marxist signed it. It is blatantly unconstitutional, not that that would matter to the current administration. And on another note, I have long suspected that if we all would start scattering words like bomb, kill, assassination, government, president and similar words scattered [totally unrelated to the message being sent] in our emails,tweets and text messages, perhaps we could overload the system and render it ineffective unless it has capacity to check the context of the word. Are they really so stupid as to think that a potential threat to the US from within or without would send open text messages [or encrypted, for that matter]? May be should all start sending encrypted gobbly-gook to each other and let them try to unencrypt a message that has no meaning. If anyone is curious if I am worried about being a... show more
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to glockstr o 80 Likes oF
Watchful
It is a a great cover story, but the truth of the matter is that it all leads to the New World Order. Government needs their *toys* and decptions to take control of the masses. Soon enough just saying even the word *abortion* may lead to you having an NSA, FBI, or CIA listening post on you. Or a word like *meeting*. We are so terribly in trouble with the current state of affairs.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Ted Blackwell 29 Likes F
watchdogbill
They are out to get us and will. NWO-CFR-WTO-the UN/NATO, Soros & the real money. The want to eliminate the middle class and use us as a one workld workforce totally controlled by BIG BROTHER. Those who cannot see the hand wriitng on the wall are the worst sort of Americans...mind numbed 6 o'clock news dolts waiting for American Idol to come on.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Watchful 17 Likes F
Nicole GINET
You are right
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ch1nish
Nonsense.
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Dave
Its interesting that the average American know more about what happened on American Idol and about certain celebrities in Hollywood than what our countries leaders do in Washington. These people have no idea about NDAA or any of the other unconstitutional acts that have become law. They don't care what their leaders are doing in Washington and assume they can be trusted and anyone who would distrust the Government is crazy!
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to Watchful F
Mr.Blackwell We are watching you!!! We can see that your computer screen is a little dirty! haha just teasing with you! lol anyways I wanted to tell you that there is a patriot in congress and his name is Ron Paul! They want to say his ideas are radical and alot of people think they are but the real truth is his ideas are just plain old common sense! We ae seeing now what is radical and we have been so used to our politicians doing nothing but radical things that when someone comes around with good old common sense we mistake it for radical! Please support Ron Paul! He is the only one with a strict track record that backs up everything he says! He wants to save America so please join the revolution...the RonPaul2012 Revolution An idea who's time has come cannot be stopped be any army or any government
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tazdelaney
perversely, that is entirely within today's surveillance tech. in fact you cn see it yourself. we al know of the immense & spook-y surveillance on us by the govt & now corporations. reads our email & tracks all we do online to the bone... then puts ads on our screens accordingly, right?
well, at first we thought we must be 'paranoid', but... it started when i made a call to an old friend in vegas and w/in minutes was getting offers for reducced fares to guess where? PHONES NOW? but hey man, now it seems to be getting beyond even that? a month ago, wife amy & i were recalling for the first time in many years a good acid-punk band from texas, butthole surfers.' in minutes, having gone to youtube, before i even got the name entered, there was a 'guide-tip' asking if interested in butthole surfers songs! according to MIT's techreview DARPA now has spy satellites capable of actually seeing through walls! they will not stop until we are hopelessly, hopelessly trapped, naked, defenseless, crushed underfoot. it must be stopped now or all hope is utterly lost here.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to panjok2 9 Likes F
Confoundmeonce
panjok2, I have been saying ( warning ) everyone I know...That this Country was going down the drain ( because of THE Play-toys, DWTS show, Big Brother, etc. that Is "ON' our screen Just to keep us Occupied While Thinking Nothing ! . THEY want Us all Brain-dead..And those who aren`t dead yet, They are Trying to drive us crazy with Their Propoganda and Misleading, false Statements on ever.ything ' from the price of bread to a steamroller in the street '.while THEY were busy Inventing and building Better Spy-gear AND More Reinforced Holding Pens for us unsuspecting < Dumbed-down Masses < Shame on Everyone of us that have Sat Back And Allowed this Condition of Inertia to Proliferate to This Point . Is it not obvious YET..that Nothing gets "Ratted-Out On this Internet..That is not First 'Run By NSA ? Even This "Expose ! Serves Them a Purpose ! It Causes Most Folks Some Angst, But Then They Just say " O Woe is Me ! What Can little ole me do
about it, Anyway ? What`s on TV tonight ?' Get It ? All these Gadgets THEY hand out to the Populace at Regular intervals DO serve Their... show more
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tazdelaney
to confounded. sorry, guy, truly am, but... i once thought highly of ron paul unlike anyy other in the whole of the govt but dennis kucinich i preferred. all i had against paul, and that was too much for my vote, was his having fought the ERA and all womens rights whatever. but then it al started to come out... it was incredibly stupid of paul to insult our smarts by denying he had a thing to do with those insanely vicious newsletters brazenly racist and anti-gay pieces we then learned had defiinitely been writ by none other than paul himself. he is toast. it is a shame so many, especially the young, have ben & many still are suckered by him. now there is absolutely no one around for whom i can even consider voting in 2012, nada.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to panjok2 1 Like F
Rodney T Hytonen
And where the corporations are coming from, is too LITTLE government to eliminate the feeble remnants of regulation that keep the from draining the few remaining resources before they starrt eating each other. A government smaller than its total Industry, cannot regulate it, and it WILL take over - and has. The problem is not that the power to oppress exists, but who HOLDS it. Which do you fear more - evesdropping or the PROVEN recession caused by corporate rule? The job market is permanently destroyed by a carcinogenically evolved profit motive, and what MIGHT happen is the most frightening thing to you? Step from paranoia into REALITY - and OCCUPY. Only numbers willing to risk what the original patriots did, will free us from the corporate rule that's EXACTLY what the first Tea Party fought (but the polar opposite of what the recent, corporate-funded one did !) Corporate and government power merged, is what America was formed, and always existed, to eliminate - and now it rules the country. An awful lot of people need to look up the true definition of Fascism. It was not defined by Webster, but by its creator, Benito Mussolini. And it is only exactly met by the... show more
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watchdogbill
Resistance is truly futile with all the modern technology. When Obanma is re-elected by brain dead idiot lemmings, they will confiscate our guns...then they can, and will do,
whatever they wish to us and with us. Obama may well be the LAST president! Dictators do NOT give up their throne! I too am in "their" watch list. Who knows how low they will draw the line for incarceration?
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Mark Mark
Sheez, "LAST president" ? I'll take that bet, better yet take your meds and have a nap, you'll feel better afterwards.
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watchdogbill
Mark Mark....wake up and smell what's brewing. The America you were born in is changing forever and will be something unimagineable!! Where do you get your news, 6 o'clock TV or by listening to the Pied Piper? You have no idea who you are dealing with in the White House!
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Like 1 month ago in reply to watchdogbill 2 Likes
tazdelaney
'resistance is futile' what movie was that from? oh, that's right, the startrek one about the borgs... well, as twain said, "it is the lost cause are the most worthwhile." emilio zapata: "better to die on one's feet than to live on one's knees!" the coup of 911 that gave the 22 KNOWN secretist cabals in teh USG (NRO, NSA, CIA, FBI, SS, ATF, DARPA, DIA, NIA, AIA, AFIA, DHS, TSA, NASA, ETC ad infinitum... their wish list on a bloody silver platter... 'treasonous 'patriot act' passd the morning after congress was allowed to re-enter since the anthrax-envelopes conveniently appeared... that enormously long bill was 730 pages long, had been delivered while all of congress had been evacuated; not a one had read it all. most had never read a single page of it! yet sheeple dems&gops alike voted for it in near-unanimity! bushcheny&co must've been peeing their panties laughing. that act makes it punishable as 'terrorism' for any to suggest revolution here! jefferson et alia cd now be 'indefinitely detainted' in the nazi bush CIA rendition program the treacherous obamb re-authorized in february 2009, having jsut told us all on 60 minutes that "we don't stand for torture!" that... show more
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watchdogbill
Tazdelaney...I realize that our presidents have ALL been involved in the push towards the one world order (odor), even Reagan was involved, but how is it that
you name only Bush? Is it still ALL Bush's fault? Our savior Obama is not mentioned...why is that? Obama has done more in 3 years to put us on the fast lane to One World Order than any other presidents COMBINED. Are you "in the tank" with him? To you characters that live in Disneyland, you obviously cannot imagine, apparently in your "historically" short life, what kind of tyrant Obama really is and who is really pulling the strings...you're in for a gigantic shock of your young lives... if he is re-elected....you will see a lot more clearly. How I hate having to pay the price for a brainwashed population.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to watchdogbill 1 Like F
stanboy
You Got IT Right Ted ! What have we been spending Blood and Treasure on for the last 10 Years? The Most CRUDE and LOW-Life on the Planet ! The 'Blue Tie Boys' watching the Blinking Lights ain't gonna get it, It's always the Grunts On the Ground ! Keep your Powder Dry, Guys !
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tazdelaney
don't feel alone in being utterly left 'out of the loop,' sir... NRO, the NAtional Reconaisance Organization started in the kennedy admin was completely unknown even by CONGRESS until a leak in 1995... 35 million 'top secret' docs per year now... we're seen as peons with no 'need to know' what is done behind our backs with our own dough!
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When it comes to those letters of Ron Paul I think even if he was a racist I would rather have him as my pesident than anyone else! Do you think any of the others care about our country? I used to be a racist and I hated gay people but this was only because I didn't know any and this was how I was raised! When I got a little older and as began to think for myself I realized that I wasn't! In fact I even changed my own father! I don't believe Ron Paul has ever been a racist but if he was he certainly isn't now! It would be political suicide for him to admit he was ever a racist so he is not like me where I can admit to some flaws in my character earlier on in my life! I think the whole country has evolved in this respect! The fact still remains that Ron Paul is the only one with a true answer to our nations problems. I would like to believe that if someone is not like they used to be then they should have their past held over their head! I used to... show more
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Like 1 month ago
o o o das
in reply to tazdelaney 6 Likes F
Yes: potential foreign threats to the US send information openly and covertly, within and without the US, encrypted and unencrypted, wireless and non-wireless, digital and analog, ALL THE TIME. Even the most basic review of the history of the US intelligence INCLUDING all abuses, real and perceived easily demonstrates the purpose and function of signals intelligence (which is the primary function of NSA). I know you don't believe this, or will see anything that counters your already-held views as "propaganda", but just wanted to point this out.
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darkx
You talk too much. Can you give just one realistic example in support of your position on defending the government's right to spy on anything the law permits them to (which is almost everything)? And please provide facts, not stupid fantasy like, Iran wants to destroy Israel, and we have to save our useless allies. Plus, even if it isn't fantasy, please don't tell us that we should sacrifice our privacy to save Israel or any other country for that matter.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to das 25 Likes F
das
darkx Yes. Pick any book on the general history of the US Intelligence Community, from nearly any author, year, or perspective, and read it. But I will give you a few examples from the history of intelligence because it's often only many years later that the public learns about such examples in support of national policy (including that of our allies). Google will tell you all you need. Zimmermann Telegram (obtained by British and used to cause the US to enter World War I) Isoroku Yamamoto (Operation Vengeance, a major strategic blow to Japan) The breaking of the Magic, Purple, and JN-25 codes (turning points in war against Japan) Cryptanalysis of Enigma (turning point in war against Germany) All you can imagine is the government spying on Americans, and doing nothing in support of national or foreign policy. All you can imagine are the abuses, and then assume everything is abuse. Our Intelligence Community has had colossal failures and more problems than can be counted. But any objective, dispassionate review of intelligence will reveal why it's important.
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Cyyndy
If that is true, then how do they sort the truth from the falsehoods? Maybe the blatantly obvious transmissions of info mean just the opposite of their intent. Maybe no one knows anything and it's all a stupid game played at our expense!
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das
Adam Eisenhart The administration claims the the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) allows them to target American citizens who are identified as active combatants. The Attorney General also argues that the President has related intrinsic authority under Article II of the Constitution. I wonder how many people have heard of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) until this year. News flash: there is a "NDAA" passed every year. It's the law that handles the budget for the entire Department of Defense. Usually it's packed with a few other things on the controversial side, because they're easier to pass that way. The provisions you're speaking of when you talk of the NDAA was less than a single page of hundreds upon hundreds of pages. So the "NDAA" is not unconstitutional. The portion of the NDAA with which you take issue also is not "unconstitutional" until a court of competent jurisdiction in our judicial branch says it is.
The reality whether anyone agrees with the law or not, believes the language is too broad, etc. is that the military detention provisions in NDAA were designed to clearly codify what was already being done at GTMO. In order to even meet that provision, a person must be a "part of or substantially support al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States [...]". I'm not sure how that translates to all US citizens. The corollary to this is that some people, including the people who supported the addition of this provision to the NDAA, believe that terrorism is a military/national defense issue, as opposed to a civilian/law enforcement issue. There is also a legal basis under AUMF that justifies this action, with which this and the prior presidential administrations both agreed. Note that nowhere in this comment so far have I said whether I agree or disagree with this. I am just stating facts. Also, I was not pointing to past abuses as a justification for more abuses. I was acknowledging the fact that there have been things that have been fairly universally seen as abuses as a way of explaining that any sensible person is aware of history. No system is perfect. But because abuses exist does not mean the entire system is only abuses. If you did have 5 million people march on the "Intelligence Community", what would you be marching on, exactly? The belief that they're doing nothing but "spying on Americans", even if that is not the case? What if the foundational reason for such a "march" is completely wrong? If you could snap your fingers and magically make the US Intelligence Community disappear while, no doubt, leaving the intelligence services of China, Russia, and others intact would you be prepared for the consequences of our nation not being able to conduct national defense or foreign policy? I know some people would respond with an enthusiastic, "YES," but I don't think they'd much like the world they would be living in. None of this is to say that the IC needs to be as big as it is, or whether any particular intelligence task needs to be conducted in exactly a certain way. Absolutely none of what I have said in this or any other comment excuses any violation of the law or of the Constitution. But
things are a lot more complex than some people are willing to admit, and a lot of people can't seem to accept that there is a lot more going on in the world, including many other interests and principles dramatically counter to our own.
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Adam Eisenhart
Even though you're correct on the facts, things have changed (or changed back) now that the Gov can, without a peep from the wine sipping media class, assassinate or kidnap a *citizen* without charges or access to a lawyer. The recent NDA is unconstitutional, spying on citizens is as well. It's a betrayal of the spirit of the Constitution and you know it. Don't site this and that to try and justify it. If we keep giving these Nazis "tools" to make their jobs easier, it won't be long until every home and car will have cameras and microphones. All wired into big brother. Pointing to past insidious behavior is not justification for more of the same. I wonder what the "intelligence community" would do, or how fast they would run, from a 5 million man march on Washington DC and there are many many more than 5 million that would join in. The police or Army won't (not can't but won't) protect them or the politicians that fund them with our money. It's not *on*. It's been on. Real Americans have to decide.
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wysinwyg
das, you can't win that game. The only outcome that game has ever had in, as you put it, the entire history of warfare is becoming what you hate and fear.
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Portachernera
I live in Cancun Mexico, for sure I know nothing about your country compared to things you know, in the other hand I have a perspective of your nation you wouldnt easily understand (as you may have this same perspective about Mexico) and what you may agree with is that your government has an enormous challenge in protecting not only you, the citizens, but the future of the worlds leading nation, history had tell us how great civilizations; Roma, Greece or Athens raised just to follow a cycle after a few years, (Aztecs dominance was less than 300 years) your nation may find the same destiny and only with great efforts, intelligence, money and technology you may delay this destiny or perhaps evade it for many centuries. I think this is something you may have to understand and/or accept, give some intelligent support to your leaders when you think is necessary would be a good idea. I dont think American or American government is good or bad, I like traveling to your great country and I really understand most of the times your leaders are doing what they have to do (like when they strip a friend in Miami airport...
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Feniantim
NSA's job is to collect Sigint and they do it very well and have for many years. What happens to that stuff is really not their concern. IMO there is no greater reason for the collapse of the USSR than NSA.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to das 1 Like F
das
Cyyndy That's actually a really excellent question, and actually something with which the intelligence community routinely struggles. Today's New York Times has a great article about just how difficult it is to discern Iran's intent and capabilities with respect to its nuclear program. And yes, you're absolutely right: in peace and in war, nations and other entities routinely practice military deception, and utilize misinformation and disinformation to throw off their adversaries. These techniques are all part of activities known as "information operations" (IO) in US doctrine. We use them and our adversaries use them. Google "JP 3-13" to learn about how they work. (It is prohibited by law for the US government to use IO techniques intended for adversaries on US Persons.) Military writings for several thousand years talk about just these topics. It's as old as warfare and humanity itself.
One of the most difficult aspects of intelligence work is separating the wheat from the chaff, truth from lies, and legitimate information from misinformation. And that's what the Intelligence Community is charged with doing. It is indeed a game, a dangerous game but one we want to win.
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Nicole GINET
You perhaps don't know that lots of congressmen are corrupted (they just follow their own interests) except Bernie Sanders for example. Do you know what is happening in Wyoming : the governor wants to vote an "Apocalypse law" ; what does it mean? Have you red Peter Dale Scott books or watched his interview with Harry Kreiser (on Youtube)? He has also written a book about FEMA secret program . For the US government and PEOPLE BEHIND ( Rumsfeld/ Cheney/Wolfowitz) who really decide, the American people must very careful supervised in order to prevent a "US spring". There is a march from San Diego to New York ( and others by the movement Occupy...) ; are you aware of it ? (excuse my English, I am not American)
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Han van der Heide
Still waiting for the swine/bird/turkey flu to take 99Nicole GINET percent of us out. This is all cow manure! Who do you think will mow the lawn when Jesus and Manuel are dead? Sheesh, even the prez isn't that stupid? Btw, you either need to install a spell checker or read what you type. Just saying.
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Like 4 weeks ago in reply to Ted Blackwell F
watchdogbill
Resistance is truly futile with all the modern technology. When Obama is re-elected by brain dead idiot lemmings, they will confiscate our guns...then they can, and will do, whatever they wish to us and with us. That's real historical fact proven repeatedly to people who cannot or will not look back at history. Obama may well be the LAST president! Dictators do NOT give up their throne!I too am in "their" watch list. Who knows how low they will draw the line for incarceration?
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Ted Blackwell F
Feniantim
LOL....good one....
o o o o Jerry
Like 1 month ago in reply to watchdogbill F
You just wait! As soon as the LEFTISTS figure out that their 'savior', O-BUMBLER, is in trouble with his reelection, there will be some sort of 'catastrophe' come up, and martial law will be declared, the elections and other 'normal' forms of Constitutional government will be suspended! Glenn Beck has been predicting EVERY ONE of these progressions, for years, and EVERY ONE is slowly, and painfully coming true! Say what you want about him, but I think he has more of a vision for the future than anyone I have heard! I have to log off so I can reload more ammo. Keep your powder dry and handy folks!
(Edited by author 1 month ago)
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to glockstr o 14 Likes oF InnerCynic
Sweet Jeezus! Would you stop it. I once was a goose-stepping Republican spear carrier. So right wing it would make the current Neo-cons look like leftist hippie doves. But I
woke up long ago that there isn't a hairs worth of difference between the bastards in this Bi-factional One-party fascist state. There are no "liberals" and "conservatives" within Leviathan. There is only YOU and THEM. As George Carlin once said, "It's a big club. And YOU ain't in it." The man was an angry prophet but even being a comedian he was stating the obvious for anyone with ears to hear and eyes to see. Turn off the television and shut up the loony babbling heads like Beck, Limbaugh or Madow.... take your pick, and WAKE UP.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Jerry 33 Likes F
watchdogbill
Do I detect a note of JBS? You've been doing your homework I see! Yep! such is so true, historical facts few will dig into. Pelosi let the cat literally out of the bag with her idiot remarks about passing the political baton back and forth, party to party and not wanting anything to actually change...BUT Obama is now changing ALL of that. America will never be the same!
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Like 1 month ago in reply to InnerCynic F
Cyyndy
When you start calling people names, like Leftists, then you have already lost your argument.
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Alec Smith
It wouldn't let me reply directly to watchdogbill, so this is for him: You ARE NOT stating the facts. You are just spouting off a bunch of nonsense opinions! You are exactly what is wrong with this country. Rather than debate civilly like a normal person, you resort to childish insults. You need to seriously reevaluate your belief system, because your current one is based completely off of sweeping generalizations.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Cyyndy 4 Likes F
watchdogbill
Call them what they are, an ace is an ace, a spade is a spade...a Communist is a Communist, a Marist is a Marist, a Socilaist is the same as a Communist and murders like Ayers and Dohrn are advising the man in the White House, any wonder why he is bent on destroying America...and the leftists claimed that these people were just casual aquaintances! Leftist = Lemming You cannot argue with a person that is mind numbed to the tune of a Pied Piper and literally "in the tank" with him, so heavily "mentally & emotionally" invested that they will follow him right off the pier into the swirling sewer he has created with his goonies. We may lose an argument with you, but so
what? Lemings cannot handle what they are. Call me a Conservative and see if I get upset? Why should a Liberal leftist be abraided by being called what they are? Leftist=politically correct Leftist=thin skinned Leftist=lacking in reasoning ability and judgement Leftist=unable to discern a fraud and liar Leftist=created their own gods and follow them Leftists=lacking in moral fiber Leftists=lacking in any desire to seek historical facts Leftists=believe Obama's phoney oil figures Leftists=believe Obama's lies and... show more
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Walt Stawicki
What a crock of short sighted knee jerking Haha I gotcha ! What planet have you been hiding on that such "partisan" politick even comes to your mouth? You have no history? then you are bound to repeat the errors of countless Republican zombies who came before you. While we Anarchists and Libertarians and Freethinkers save your sorry skin, maybe...
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Andrew Purvis
And if you are wrong? Will you publicly eat your words?
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wysinwyg
How much would you like to bet? I'll bet $40,000 against your $20,000 that none of this comes to pass. I'm not a big fan of Obama but I like making money on stupid bets from suckers.
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Soylent_Green_is_people
The US interned thousands and thousands of Japanese citizens during WWII without trial, so your point about this being the first time in history that the US has detained American citizens without trial is not only false, it's flat-out retarded. The problem with conspiracy nutjobs (like, you know, YOU) is that you don't understand history. Possibly because you don't have the capacity to understand history. That's why it's so easy for you to fall in for the kind of crap shovelled out by Alex Jones or Glen Beck or whoever the f*ck else is leading you bunch of clowns: **You...good....government...bad!!** Oh, that's easy to understand! I'm good and the government's bad! I get it. I get it! I'm a winner.
Except, no. No, no you're not a winner. You're a massive f*cking loser. Go read a book.
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to glockstr o 5 Likes oF watchdogbill
BTW...you did realize there is a difference betwewen war time and peace time...right? Or doesn't that matter in YOUR world? Would you like to apologize for the bomb?
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Soylent_Green_is_people 4 Likes F
watchdogbill
...and just whose books are you reading that makes you think we are all conspiracy nut jobs? Perhaps something written by Bill Ayers?Have you thought for a moment that we might know something you haven't figured out YET? What Obama has now done has
NEVER been done in our American history. No president has never been given such unconstitutional authority, carte blanche, no restrictions. I've read the document, have you?
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Soylent_Green_is_people 2 Likes
watchdogbill
History...there was not time to sort them out and there was a legitimate, genuine fear of whose side some of them were on. Indeed a sad event but would you give your life or your families life to be wrong? Do you have any concept of the number of spies we had in this nation passing themsleves off as "good Americans"? Apparently not. Leftist movie makers like to portray America as evil. But by not squashing the Sharia Law invaders right now, we are now allowing for our own destruction. Watch and see what is now taking place in Europe and England.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Soylent_Green_is_people 1 Like F
Quackula, Big Game Hunter, ex porn star, ex race car driver.
"Resistance is futile". Excerpt taken from the Borg.
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to glockstr o 4 Likes oF ch1nish
Not true. GO OBAMA!
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to glockstr oF Watchful
Like to kow that source story...
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to glockstr oF CJ
There are some very important differences. 1. Big Brother's snooping ability has expanded exponentially. 2. The unconstitutional aspects are being ignored. When people like Ron Paul try to bring it up as a concern, they are ignored.
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Mark
Yes there is a big difference. This is global, systemic, and in initial manifestation in every EU and US influenced domain on planet earth.
It's not isolated in the world as you claim, it is isolated in your assessment. It's time to open your awareness to global developments in just the last 100 years? No, you only need to study the last 3 years to see the herd is nearing the destination. Do you know where cows end up? It's up yonder. See the building?
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Judson Llewellyn Skynar
The camps are already out there.
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to Mark o 3 Likes oF watchdogbill
We have one "CAMP" near me. We had floods wipe out two entire towns in a valley. Homeless residents, total destruction. The so called FEMA camp is suppose to be exactly for those type of emergencies...BUT, those homeless residents were DENIED use, not able to access those facilities. The reason? They are confinement facilities for political dissidents, not for disaster relief! The vast majority of you people have no idea of what Obama has in store for us after his re-election. If you think it's bad now, wait...he is waiting for the full go ahead to inflcit his
agneda on America. You people that think you are in the tank with him and his ilk...check your hhistry, see what dictators do with the hemorroids that help them gain that power!
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Judson Llewellyn Skynar 2 Likes F
sgree123
Lots of these things already existed way before you got mad about "dat der colored boy in da whaaat hoooose!"
o o o o o watchdogbill
The difference is, THIS IS REAL! You will soon find out that this is not the "same old same old", so don't roll over and go back to sleep. Those of us who are old enough to remember, know what the Nazis and Communists have done and are doing. 150 years ago eh! What was that they were saying 150 years ago? Obama is aiming at dissenters...political adversaries and the outspoken that gain attention...they will be taken off the streets (no phone call home, just like Russia, you just disappear!) and placed in the internment camps already built and some still under contruction. They are passing them off as FEMA camps but disaster victims cannot use the facilities because they are, in reality, prisons. He already has
enacted the laws giving him the power to do this to us, the American citizen. When he is re-elected we will see his full scale version of Communism.
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Craigh00000
*Please excuse Bill, But what is the exact location of the detention camp you mentioned? Easiest is to find it on Google Earth and give us the latitude and longitude. Thank you.
o Like o 2 weeks ago o in reply to watchdogbill oF watchdogbill
I was never concerned with the locations of the other sites, but I am sure they are out there because of the one that is located outside of Johnstown NY. A construction worker spilled the beans on it. You can Google sites for the facts and myths, pro's & con's, believe or not, concerning the FEMA "camps" I can't post url's because those apparently are moderated out. Here locally, we had two towns wiped out because of flooding. Hundreds of homeless, but FEMA would not allow the camp to be used for temporary lodging! The reason, it's not an emergency shelter, it's an internment camp for political problem people...dissenters. BTW, Did you know that Obama declared Martial Law in March. What do you suppose he is planning? It's difficult for Americans to understand the sinister and evil nature of the people now in charge of the military and the nonmilitary/non-police special force. What's really important is that the UN loves tyranical,
dictatorial governments. They can't wait until Obama brings America down to 3rd world status. Did you know the Communist Party loves Obama and his plans? Does that tell us anything?
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Like 2 weeks ago in reply to Craigh00000 F
Byzantine Crusader
Bulls41t it has. And these aren't arguments, this is what is happening RIGHT NOW.
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Watchful
Your right, there is no difference... in people like you, still construing the same view that * oh its been said but no one ever does anything about it* attitude. Sounds like to me Mark has his crap together and indeed is preparing for the worse. God bless ya brother! wish I had the means to do the same.
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tazdelaney
SDS founder tom hayden later said in sorrow that "when my generation failed to pull off revolution in 1968, we became a generation of might-have-beens.' well, we aint all dead quite yet and finally another rebellious generation is rapidly emerging as the OWS evidences. absolute totalitarianism of a nearly unimaginable sort is here and worse by the hour. 1st thing i did on the web in 1993 was to subscribe to MIT techreview emergingtech daily email updates. often startling; sometimes terrifying... in the past 3 years there have been at least 3 major releases about the rapid advances being made in mind-reading. a japanese lab's director showed raw text and low-res drawinglike images grabbed direct from the brain. he states flatly that by 2015: full color and resolution; by 2020 at the latest will be color video. a french team is doing the R&D to have that capability from satellites in space. DARPA works with both. thought-crime is virtually here & now! and 'remote implanting of language' is also now in place. in fact, several means already exist and can 'send' with such overwhelming power that the person invariably believes that the thouth is their very own. so if you... show more
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Like 1 month ago in reply to cm3kz0ut 1 Like F
InnerCynic
And? And? Were you so high it never penetrated your noggin? Or are you just another little froggie who's been cooked?
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cm3kz0ut
my my ... a little latent hostility going on ... mom and dad won't buy you the new iPad ... poooor babeeeee
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to InnerCynic oF InnerCynic
Nothing "latent" about it. I despise willful ignorance.
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watchdogbill
I don't despise WILLFUL ignorance, I just feel sorry for you folks because you're all in for the surprise of your blinded, brainwashed lives when it really hits the fan after the re-election. In thinking themslves wise, they became fools.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to InnerCynic
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2 Likes F
cm3kz0ut
well, you're so amazing ... now go to your room and play with your wii/wii and pretend to be mad and blow up things. Wooooooo! Booom Boom. Dead. I'm strong!!!!!
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watchdogbill
BINGO!
o o o o Kelly V
Like 1 month ago in reply to cm3kz0ut F
Well said Mark!!!
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Mark Newell 9 Likes
Tom Buffone
Did anyone notice that das is so long winded that even Wired "snipped" him for making the thread to hard to read? Why did das remove his profile from this debate as well?
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Kelly V 3 Likes F
Michael Carlson
Did anyone notice that das was actually making some valid points? I concur that this article, as well as many recent developments in the U.S. in the arena of civil liberties, are very disturbing. However, it is important to have historical context when discussing these issues. First off, how do you know why Wired "snipped" him?Second, you are an idiot if you don't appreciate what he was trying to get across. Whether you are an alarmist or a statist, there was a valid point he was making. ...and when did "long winded" become an acceptable refutation of someone clearly presenting relevant factual information? Again, you are an idiot. My cock penetrates your brain and busts a nut that contributes to your intelligence...
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to Tom Buffone o 1 Like oF wysinwyg
" Again, you are an idiot. My cock penetrates your brain and busts a nut that contributes to your intelligence..." FWIW, I actually agree that das had some good points, but you pretty much ruined your credibility at the end there...
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Michael Carlson 3 Likes F
Quackula, Big Game Hunter, ex porn star, ex race car driver.
They keep you busy with media gossip while they undermine your freedoms slowly chipping them away, not enough for you too notice right off, just a little here, a little there, until one day you notice you have no more but it's already too late.
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Chris Anton
If there was a majority of people that loved freedom in this country, I would be concerned about the destruction of the constitution. However, since most of our country doesn't even know what the constitution is, I would be completely satisfied watching them suffer under a dictatorship.....HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
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Steve Cobb
Legalize vice (drugs, prostitution, gambling), eliminate the personal income tax, and reduce US military involvement around the world, and you will greatly reduce the justification for such intrusive digital stop-andfrisk measures.
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Like 4 weeks ago in reply to Mark Newell 2 Likes F
Mark McCoy
Dear National Security Agency, and all would-be proponents and supporters of governments everywhere who fashion themselves in the image of the paterfamilias called the United States, They say, if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear. Well, I have everything to hide, but still am not afraid. The fact is, they are here, and they have the means to invade our lives. So, lets lay it on the table. Ill save the taxpayers a bit of coin and tell the NSA what they will probably find out anyway. I wont bother encrypting, encoding, obfuscating, or hiding what I have to say. The United States Government is an out-ofcontrol, imperialistic, totalitarian, exploitative, terroristic Leviathan.
Lets put it like this; if you have nothing to fear, then you have no reason to intercept communications. Yet, you do have something to fear, dont you Uncle Sam? Your global transgressions and immoral propensities have dyed the rivers and oceans with the blood of innocents. Your boot print is an indelible reminder of your disregard for cultures and sovereignty. Your filth infects this planet like a metastasizing cancer. You bear none of the markings of a peaceful, prosperous, and virtuous society. You... show more
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tazdelaney
these nazi freaks must be taken down & apart NOW! hack to shreds then repeat-repeat-repeat. jefferson sagely said "any govt that make a policy of long-keeping secrets from the public no longer works in the interests of its people." but even more succinctly, he also said "only criminals & tyrants require secrecy!" so imagine what ol thom would have to say if he knew that there are no 22 secretist cabals in the USG! NRO-NSACIA-FBI-DHS-TSA-ATF-DIA-NIA-AIA-AFIA-SS-NASA-DARPA-ETC ad infinitum... NRO, the National Reconnaisance Organization, begun in secret by JFK admin 1962... was unknown even to congress until 1995! the USG since 2005 produces over 35 million top secret documents yearly! what they do to us with our won money in those dark shadows we are not allowed to even know! this has nothing whatsoeer to do with freedom & democracy. it is and really always has been the land of fiefdom & demockery. so scre this. the 2nd amendment was actually written so that in the event a tyranny arose; the citizenry could, SHOULD overthrow it pronto, ASAP! 911? the 'outcry' for 'security' over liberties? living here that day, the level of truth we got from govt was at the precise level... show more
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Mark Newell 2 Likes
InnerCynic
Good for you, Mark. Keep on doing what you're doing and you'll at least stand a chance of making it out alive. And if you're able to make sure you can find someplace to live outside of the major metro areas. I wouldn't want to live near any large population centers when it all goes to hell. Leviathan only has so many resources. Don't make it easy for them.
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Reinhard Sokol
Follow the trail of that storm you write about and you will always end up in the path of footprints of the people who really masterminded and executed 9/11 (just the fact that these are the same digits that you dial when you are in need for help should give all of us pause and make us think). Until these monsters and their deeds have been put on trial in a court of the people, not in a secret court at a secret location, this land of the free and home of the brave doesn't stand a chance to continue living up to its myths of creation we hold in such high esteem.
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Like 4 weeks ago in reply to Mark Newell 1 Like F
Joshua Smith
I know exactly what you mean. When I started working in IT and studying it, I was excited to learn how it all worked. I have to say that time has taught me the truth of the phrase, "ignorance is bliss." Even if you're a law abiding citizen, this is reason for concern. How many private conversations have you had with your family? How many deeply personal issues have you addressed over the phone? I'm always wary of posting much by way of personal or inflammatory data on the internet, but information is the heartbeat of society. There is no way to escape it. I used to sleep, as well. I suppose that there really is no rest for the wicked. I worry that, if I continue in this field, I will wind up in a padded room one day.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Mark Newell 1 Like F
Jeffrey Baughman
Take the tinfoil hat off and join reality.
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Gary A Heinitz
WELCOME BROTHER, YOU ARE AWAKE. SEMPER FI.
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yahoo-OWHY637RTF6JJBDFOJFN45NBUA
wouldn't a government powerful enough to monitor every action/communication of each of it's citizens be able to roll over some guy with a few guns and some chef boyardee?
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Rodney T Hytonen
and we know its beginning "First they came for the Communists...then they came for the trade unionists...." Sounds like Fox's news directives - or the ALEC agenda -or, an anti-OWS post on youtube.
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Byzantine Crusader
Yer not even making sense, but that's par for the liberal course...
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Rodney T Hytonen F
wysinwyg
Rodney is making perfect sense. The Nazis were anti-communist, that's why Glenn Beck's favorite poem starts "First they came for the communists and I said nothing for I was not a communist." Fox news is playing divide and conquer by convincing a bunch of idiots (like you apparently) that liberals are your enemy when most liberals are (like you probably) pro-freedom and pro-human. Liberals and conservatives have more in common than either realize or are willing to admit because civil discourse has been poisoned by the agenda of mass media, which is always to make the rich richer and the poor more compliant. The big difference between you and me is that you've let the media brainwash you into believing liberals are evil instead of believing that they are merely misled or misinformed. I don't think you're evil at all. I just think you're a sucker. I'm sure you think you're a smart, dangerous free thinker though.
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to Byzantine Crusader o 5 Likes oF watchdogbill
Obama has created the absolute worst division since the Civil War. He has drawn a clear line between the left and the Conservatives. The line between Liberals/Democrats and Republicans is very blurred now...Pelosi said it all with her one stupid remark...what abox of rocks her and Biden are. The color things means nothing, I was backing Cain 100% with cash before he dropped out. Good people will not suffer this nonsense. It takes a special bozo to want to be president...unless that person is a Patriot!
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Like 1 month ago in reply to wysinwyg F
Chuck Bateman
Being new to this forum, and having read what has been said, I would like to share an idea with everyone regarding the Democrat/liberal/progressive mindset. First, there are a number of democrats (blue-dog) that are hanging on to the Democratic Party because they still believe in those principles and values that the DP stood for decades ago. I have a ninety-two year-old uncle that fits this description. As for the socialist mindset, there are two kinds. One is the utopian socialist and the other is the marxist-socialist. The utopian socialist believes that man can function under a democracy or democratic form of government - but this is a flawed belief, as all of history has shown. The marxist-socialist "uses" the utopian-socialist as a dupe to promote and entrench socialism, under which wealth is redistrubted until it is gone. Then the revolution begins as planned by the marxist-socialist, blood and guts fill the streets, and either tyranny or anarchy result - usually tyranny. The progressive mindset has also penetrated the Republican Party; however, in the Republican party the emphasis isn't on social-minded ideas, but on cronyism, predatory capitalism, and getting re-elected at the tax-payers expense. All Americans need to become one,... show more
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Like 1 month ago in reply to watchdogbill
o o Thane Kerner
4 Likes F
I agree. It is 1933 Germany. If I had an acceptable place to run to right now, I'd do what a lot of Germans did in the early to mid 30s...I'd get the hell out of here. I imagine I wouldn't be alone, and we'd be seeing an exodus. I'll tell you this much. A 12-gauge won't help if our elite masters decide to start incarcerating people for no good reasons.
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Like 1 week ago in reply to Mark Newell F
Jay Beswick
Boy, thats a mouthful of truth! Like you, I too favored some level of security. I graduated from a federal LE academy in 1983. In the late 1980's worked with LA Street gangs, out of the East L.A. probation dept. Spent more than a decade on the LA Interagency Gang Task Force. Even a founder of one International Task Force of crime prevention. Went on to become an activist, one that has worked with non profits and the media to generate about 400 news stories in 12 years. I live for research and my friends are journalist. The day Stellar Wind was released, I got a call from a journalist from NYC who sent me the link and told me to be sitting down when I read it. A simple research project after, experimenting with internet redirected search results, suggests that someone in government is already harvesting GOOGLE search results, besides GOOGLE! I know from my law enforcement meetings that agencies have long harvested emails looking for "buzz" words that might indicate a threat.
In perspective many soldiers die in world conflicts, but we still insert ourselves in regions for political interest. 50,000 people die in auto accidents each year,... show more
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Like 1 week ago in reply to Mark Newell F
dosseis
Lol @ carloads of gang members.
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to Mark Newell F
Zachary Cusson
Very eloquent and truthful. Thank you sir. People really need to wake up.
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michael mcneill
this damn nigger obama must be impeached now
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Andrew
Mark, I agree with your assessment of the threat to the average person's way of life and the consequences facing anyone who tries to free the people from this threat. I also understand why you are preparing for selfpreservation. I have often felt urges to take similar measures. It has taken a lot of contemplation and reminding myself of what is really important in order for me to let go of these urges. Yes, making moves today towards self-preservation may be the only way to survive when the s#%t hits the fan, but remember, no matter what you do there is still death at the end. We need to ask ourselves, "What makes life meaningful?" The answer, I think, is that we need to risk sacrificing ourselves for something bigger. Rather than putting our efforts and resources into self-preservation, we might end up leading a more satisfying life by working to save others from the fate we fear for ourselves. We may have to choose: Pursue the longest possible life, or take the chance that our lives may end earlier, knowing that if they do, they ended in the pursuit of something greater than ourselves.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Mark Newell F
nulloman
I'd characterize it more as fermenting blended fruit.
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Cal Cousineau
Yeah, i must say. You are one smart guy. Now no one is sure there is some storm brewing, because to me, the only things that brew are lies, and media trying to scare people. So brewing does not exist to me. Its things that happen. In Germany, The only thing that was brewing in 1935 was hitler in jail. Who would have thought? He was a slick talker. All it takes is someone persuasive, So.. Nothing brews until something happens. Ie: someone's elected, or in charge. No ones elected or in charge yet.
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bluedawg1
Careful there, cowboy. You've just become your own enemy. Have no fear. Or it may come to possess you.
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Mark
Nice, and honest. Eventually the kitten opens his eyes... But the cows never do, do they? LOL
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Just to preempt some of the comments likely to be attached to this article, I thought I'd start it out with some facts. Traffic metadata (things like email "envelope" information, source and destination IPs, etc.) has long been fair game without a warrant as the digital analogue of a "pen register" under Smith v. Maryland 442 US 735 (1979), and is part of the provision that supports lawful NSA data collection under the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 and other law, in conjunction with telecommunication operators like AT&T. The content of traffic of US Persons is NOT fair game, without a properly adjudicated warrant. The FISA Amendments Act of 2008, passed by a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress, allows for foreign intelligence collection on non-US Persons without a warrant, no matter where the collection occurs. The longstanding Smith v. Maryland allows for the collection and examination of communications metadata without a warrant. The FISC ruling explicitly finds legal such collection under the now-sunset Protect America Act and the current FISA Amendments Act of 2008. In order to determine which traffic content may be collected for foreign intelligence purposes, the traffic metadata must be examined. Even when a target... show more (Edited by a moderator)
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DoctorNine
You just cut and pasted what you wrote 2 months ago, Das. Why? And you never manage to get to addressing the real issue: Why should we allow the government to monitor all communications all the time? Although the burgeoning ability of electronic communications has reached a point where it is now physically possible to monitor everything, all the time, as a species, is this something which we want to engage in? When there is someone constantly aggregating all information about you, what possible purpose could it be put to, EXCEPT to control you? These are very serious questions. And since there is no way for those who are being surveilled to know how this information is being used, simple verbal assurances by people like you, that it is all "To protect us", sound more than just a bit hollow. Nothing good will come of this. And if no one realizes the potential of such systems yet, let me be very clear, when I say, there may come a time when totalitarian control has become so complete, that there will be physically no way to break free of it.
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das
Because my comments then, and my comments to you at that time, are just as valid on this article as they were then. Since my post makes the point about why exactly the NSA needs this kind of technical capability, why reinvent the wheel? It is an important issue and there are indeed serious questions. "When there is someone constantly aggregating all information about you"
...and this is where you start making assumptions: you assume that someone MUST be "aggregating all information about you", and that the purpose can only be to "control you". Given that our adversaries have extensive SIGINT capabilities that are not sitting idle, how would you propose that any American could perform a personal end-to-end inspection that would satisfy a question of whether information is being "misused"? The answer is that it cannot be done while keeping information about our specific sources, methods, and capabilities secret from our adversaries. And if your reply is that we should simply have no such capabilities on this scale because they could be abused, we put ourselves at a significant disadvantage versus our adversaries. Do we absurdly sacrifice the end to the means, crippling our foreign intelligence capability because it... show more
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Like 1 month ago in reply to DoctorNine 9 Likes F
DoctorNine
Your argument seems to be, that living in OUR totalitarian state is preferable to living in THEIR totalitarian state. After all, if they are totalitarian, why should we hamstring our defensive capabilities by insisting on this 'freedom' thing? We should be totalitarian too! This is a false choice. Other methods, and different choices may be required, but oblique and asymmetrical strategies could be employed, which don't require the same levels of intrusion into citizens' daily lives that rival the old East German Stasi secret police.
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to das o 125 Likes oF
Nothing Much
You got it smack on. Soviet GRU agents when they came to the USA would visit the Bronx and other US slums in order to re-calibrate their hatred of the US after seeing streets teeming with cars and the rich American middle class. And the sights of the US slums did reset their patriotism for the USSR, even when they knew the horrors of the GULAG, and knew that there were more poeple in Soviet prison camps than were living in American slums. You see the weakness and the horrors of 'the other' and never yourself. This is human nature, it's beyond hyprocracy, it's a force of nature, hyprocracy means you are aware, this is just humanity running on autopilot. It's impossable for people like Das to accept the fact that they are the bad guys. To do so would be to accept that given the magnitude of what they do establishes the the magnitude of their crime. In fact, they want to be thanked for violating your rights. The true question is, how do you counter large intel operations like this without having to raise them yourself. Its a very difficult question. However history shows that you can... show more
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das
There is no false choice: your response is based on false premises, assumptions, and attributing a position to me that I don't have: 1. That whatever NSA is doing, it means we're living (or could be living) in a "totalitarian state". 2. That the purpose of NSA's work isn't foreign intelligence, but rather domestic intelligence. 3. That I and others believe essential liberty should be sacrificed for temporary security.
2. and 3. are utterly false, and 1. is based in the belief that if we grant government any powers, they will inevitably be abused to the utmost. You assume your freedoms are being taken away because of the government's work. Except we have a military and law enforcement apparatus that could utterly crush anyone in terms of capabilities, yet our nation still stands and the military is under civilian control. Given your line of reasoning, how is this even possible? Our government isn't perfect, but it's not "totalitarian" by any definition of the world. What I'm saying is that our system IS in fact preferable to others, and should be protected while at the same time respecting the rights of our citizens. How is this hard to understand? Sure, we... show more (Edited by author 1 month ago)
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JimMNH
"2. and 3. are utterly false, and 1. is based in the belief that if we grant government any powers, they will inevitably be abused to the utmost. You assume your freedoms are being taken away because of the government's work." No Das. You expect that we the people should just trust government and the people given these powers to do the right thing .. always. How do "we the people" know that the purpose of NSA's work is foreign intelligence, and not domestic intelligence .. because they promise? History proves in many instances that this never works. And the Constitution was setup with the hope of preventing this kind of blind faith in government powers from ever taking hold again. I'm not apposed to things that need to occur to keep us safe. I am apposed to those powers and
abilities being unchecked and out of site from public scrutiny and public debate. I am apposed to people knowingly circumventing the Constitution and the spirit of our founding especially while claiming it is in our best interest. These are key differences between democracy and a totalitarian state.
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L Lovell
Das, it is beyond clear that you drink daily from the gov't kool-aide! You twist facts and bloat rhetoric all in an attempt to SOUND intelligent. Any one with a analytical and critical thinking mind can see right through you! Furthermore, just because something is "legal" does NOT mean it is Constitutional!! Our gov't that we are supposed to trust has passed laws that are clearly against the Constitution! Can you say Patriot Act and NDAA--just to mention two? Go drink you daily dose of kool-aide!
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Dwayne Hoover
Considering DAS' background is within the military and the fact that he spent 7 years as an undergrad without a degree, tells me he is exactly the wrong person anyone should listen to on this issue.
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Thayer Goss
One thing you don't seem to realize is that we should NEVER have to hope our government does the right thing. We are a nation of laws and that INCLUDES the government. The system used to be setup to protect it's citizens. This included protection from the government, but that's all been eroded away and you can sit there is pretend that while you may think it unlikely that this could go horribly wrong, you can't guarantee it. Something of which our rights are supposed to be. GUARANTEED and UNALIENABLE. The government is NOT supposed to even have the power or authority to take them away, but with the shroud of "national security" they have unfettered authorization to decide what falls under that. No one's saying it's absolutely happened, but you can't say it won't. All it takes is the wrong person to get into office. SO quit preaching you assurances are unsubstantiated and based on vain hope and not reality.
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Andrew Tubbiolo
Das in reply to your question about where I stand on the need for intelligence and the military. This operation is not aimed at foreign intelligence agencies. Nor it it arrayed against foreign intelligence agencies and foreign military forces. Nor it is
arrayed against foreign intelligence agencies, military, or even governmental forces. It's arrayed against the world, the people of the world. It's Poindexter's TIA. Do I believe in countering military threats. Yes. I believe our response to the Cold War was measured, metered, and proportional. I consider it to be a excellent job, and a valuable lesson for the 'not as free as it used to be' world. We did not need invasive intelligence agencies raised against the population of the world in order to counter a power bloc of industrialized nations. We went up against 65 active motorized divisions, armored, rifle, and infantry. They had over 8000 combat aircraft. 300 submarines, several surface groups, and they could keep their assets at sea all year round. They had a moder ICBM force with first strike capability of over 3000 deliverable warheads (over 30,000 when you counted tactical and other nuclear arms), and all the needed space assets to augment... show more
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PR_uno
Isn't the NSA spying on the Occupy movement here in the good old USA? Whose members are being beaten and arrested for exercising their legal and human rights.
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Andrew Tubbiolo
You know Das I'm interested in your thoughts an a point that other people allude to. You, and people like you want to monitor the actions, thoughts, and words of ... well everyone, because you see the actions of some that frighten you, and you therefore want to constantly monitor in order to stop actions before they are done. If you want to create a global monitoring system because of 9.11, the actions of what ...21 active guys, and another 1000 or so guys supporting the enterprise in one way or another in the background. As yourself truthfully, what will you, and people like you, do when you can gather information and synthesize the information on the vast hordes of the worlds population. What will be your reaction when you see just how many people will come to hate you as you clamp down on their behavior and they react? I foresee a vast cycle of paranoia, where the worlds population learns of your efforts, becomes paranoid against you, fears you, and you having the ability to meter this hatred and fear come to fear the population at large. This is a recipe for creating conflict where it need not... show more
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Andrew Tubbiolo
Das. Thank you for that honest reply. To recap for the listeners you .. *) Admitted that as a member of the IC and military you cannot deviate from policy. This is understood. It's also why the IC belong out of politics when they are employed. People mistake your fidelity to policy as your on opinion. *) Because of your fidelity to policy you cannot act like an engineer and change your actions based on what works or what does not. For instance, in the face of 10 years of defeat and failure, your community cannot change what it does. Again I understand this. The failure of the IC is that it resists the probing needed by the rest of society to find out the reasons for failure so it can effect change.
*) Complain that my proposal to cut intel and the military is too steep. Also call it unrealistic because China will match our spending in 202x. It's not proposing this Das, it's overbearing reality. It's a force of nature that frankly your community and the policy makers you serve created. Don't blame me. Look in the mirror. As a member of the IC you darn well know... show more
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Andrew Tubbiolo
So what would I do? 1) Reduce intelligence spending to $5 billion dollars/year 1a) Destroy the DHS 1b) Re-stove pipe the CIA and FBI. Set them back against each other. 1c) Ourlaw DIA and other like operations in USA. 2) Return focus to photo recon 3) Issue arrest warrants against Al-Q. Use interpol to conduct arrests. 3a) When captured Al-Q suspects are given full trials by jury in civil federal court. 4) Build an Iridium like array of satellites that provide open internet to anybody with a smart phone. 4a) Provide free smart phones, via smuggling, you name it to population centers of enemy nations. 5) Run guns to Iranian green movement. 6) Run guns to Syrians. 7) Leave Afghanistan. 8) Cut defense spending to $250 billion/year. 9) Build weapons we can afford for the long term.
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Andrew Tubbiolo
Das, you said "National policy is designed to be in the national interest that's the whole point. Clearly there can be significant disagreement about what national policy should be, but to separate the two is to misunderstand national policy." Wow, you really believe "to separate the two is to misunderstand national policy.". I can understand that as an officer of the US military and member of the IC, you have to act as if that were the case professionally, but to really believe that? Come now. In most cases you can't determine what national interest is until deep into problem. Even the most pedestrian reading of history shows how administration after administration confuses the interest of the administration with national interest time and time again. I deeply believe that's why freeer nations do better than nations with more powerful governments. They can back out of bad policies when you see things are not going your way. This is the problem I see in your logic. When you encounter a failure, your nature is to seek more power. It's one thing to say "I must serve policy, and policy is to serve failure of policy with more power.". Okay, I... show more
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raycote
1-2-3 Tust with verification! To know when you know and to know when you don't know, this is knowledge!
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das
Andrew Tubbiolo My thoughts and opinions are my own. What, specifically, have I said that isn't "real information", or a real explanation of the purpose and function of the IC, that can't be easily gleaned from numerous sources? National policy is designed to be in the national interest that's the whole point. Clearly there can be significant disagreement about what national policy should be, but to separate the two is to misunderstand national policy. How do you figure that countering China is going to be a more difficult task because of anything I laid out? You're attributing an awful lot of thoughts and positions to me that I simply don't have and have not articulated in any way. And speaking of the Soviet Union, yes, we spend less as a proportion of GDP the "guns and butter" strategy: we could afford both, and the Soviets ultimately could only afford the former. We outspent them, among other reasons. What's your agenda?* Who's to say your opinion is more or less valid? You don't see me issuing personal attacks against others, accusing others of speaking with a voice other than their own, or implying others are disingenuous.
* I don't believe you have an "agenda" other than simply having a discussion and making your own point. That's the only reason I commented here as well. I really wish more people would engage in an honest discussion.
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das
Andrew Tubbiolo I hate to tell you this, but foreign intelligence has gone on long before 9/11. The fact there was a major domestic terrorist attack by a non-nationstate entity certainly changed the focus of intelligence work dramatically I don't think anyone disputes that. In other words, the fact the US does foreign surveillance is not new in any respect. What IS new is that a lot more of the information travels via digital, non-wireless media, and can no longer be intercepted via globally-distributed listening posts, ships, and other traditional tools. Your question is a valid one, and the answer is that the reason why any nationstate, organization, or even tribe throughout history does intelligence work is to have an instrument of power, to protect its own interests, and to have an information advantage over adversaries. You speak as if this is a new construct: it is not. My question to you is what would YOU do if you realized that nations which protect, defend, and promote principles of freedom and liberal democracy were suddenly unable to do so in the face of competing interests to which we don't subscribe? Do you believe that the world would be a better place without the US and the West and along with that, the ability of the US and the West to protect and project its
own principles and those of its friends and allies, no matter how imperfectly it may do so at times throughout history?
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das
Andrew Tubbiolo I'm interested in your thoughts on this topic, and glad you're engaging in a reasonable discussion but man, I have to say, you do a marvelous job of continuing to put words into my mouth and attribute to me positions that I don't hold. Yes, I do really believe that your characterization that national policy and national interests are divergent is utterly missing the bigger picture. There are a lot of things that the US government has done that I don't think are particularly good ideas. But politics and axe-grinding aside, the policy makers, as a whole and in general, are doing what they believe is in the national interest. The fact that YOU or anyone else disagrees with it doesn't make you correct, and the other side incorrect. It means you disagree. It's easy to say that "this policy isn't in the nation's best interests because I don't agree with it." Except there are people on the other side of the equation who believe that a particular policy IS in the national interest. (Note: this does NOT include violating the law.) Intelligence is an instrument of policy...nothing more. It does not exist to serve itself. National security and intelligence issues transcend all politics and Presidential administrations. Some Presidents may change or even reverse policy because they believe it is in the national interest. Voters may vote for different politicians because they personally disagree with policy. Those voters may be anywhere from extremely informed, to ignorant, to paranoid, to utterly misinformed and often those who fancy themselves as well-informed have a
sadly imbalanced and incomplete picture because they choose to view the world through a one-sided lens. It's interesting that you believe my position is that policy failures should be rewarded with more power, when I have never said, implied, or alluded to any such thing. Frankly, I don't even believe it, and I think it's ridiculous how failure is sometimes rewarded in bureaucracies of all manner and size. But you're conflating two things: I won't put words into your mouth, but I'm going to assume by "policy failure" you mean the military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11. That is completely and utterly separate from foreign intelligence. The actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, while customers of intelligence products, are still a very small part of what the IC does. If you're arguing that the entire intelligence apparatus is somehow a "policy failure", that's a more nebulous topic, and is really unrelated to anything I've said about NSA's mission. If someone thinks that NSA should have its budget slashed, or cease to exist, or not be able to collect foreign intelligence in the US (even though the intelligence services have always collected foreign intelligence in the US under varying sets of law, directives, and oversight), or that the size and scope of the IC is just too great, or any manner of other things, those are all well and good. But it doesn't change anything I have said about the mission, purpose, and function of NSA. Note I never said anything was a fantastic idea, nor a terrible idea. What I said was, these are some things to consider about the work of NSA in an increasingly digital world. What's especially funny to me is comments that say things like that I'll never be satisfied until every American is monitored. (???) This is sort of puzzling to me since in nearly every single one of my comments, I'm trying to explain how and why that is NOT the goal, explaining what the LAW says, giving examples from history, and even acknowledging all of the mistakes, abuse, and failures. When people talk about the IC, especially in a public context, the most visible things are precisely those abuses and failures. You don't and won't hear about the people doing the right thing, every day, year after year. What successes the IC can point to are often two generations old. Speaking of policy, Thomas Fingar, the DDNI until 2008, said "I learned something a long time ago in this town. There are only two possibilities: policy
success and intelligence failure." Meaning, you'll never hear about an "intelligence success", and no one wants to acknowledge a failed policy. Intelligence has "successes" providing products to policy makers every single day. "Success" doesn't mean stopping a 9/11 every day, or even not missing things sometimes it means giving policy makers the information they need to make decisions.
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das
Andrew Tubbiolo Sounds like you have some reasonable ideas. More in the political/policy realm, but the defense and intelligence communities exist to serve national policy not themselves. - I don't believe transnational terrorism is a civil/law enforcement issue. I believe it is a military/national security issue. This does NOT mean that it's not possible for terrorism to be handled in the civilian justice system it can be, and we have done so many times. This also does not mean the civilian justice system has no function with respect to terrorism: it absolutely does. What it means is that I believe that our national security apparatus is a key tool for dealing with terrorism, and we should always use the most effective tool for the job. - Your comment about re-stovepiping intelligence agencies made me chuckle, mostly because the IC is as stovepiped as ever. Post9/11 reports, recommendations, directives, and legislation uniformly point to the need for the IC to move from the existing need to know mode to one of need to share and responsibility to provide, because of its inability to "connect the dots" leading up to 9/11. Some would say these recommendations have not been realized in any meaningful way.
- The US recognizes the power of getting unfettered access to information to people in repressive societies, and the US has an array of initiatives (most spearheaded by the State Department) and tools, some secret, for doing just that. The US recognizes the explosion in cell phones and access to information in the developing world as a critical development in those societies. - Absolutely no question that intelligence budgets exploded after 9/11. That seemingly limitless spending is coming to an end. The type of cut you suggest, though, is untenable. The top-line National Intelligence Program budget is about $50B/year, and $5B would be not be tenable. With your comment about "photo recon", keep in mind that a major way the US does IMINT/GEOINT is with overhead assets that are EXTREMELY expensive and would likely alone vastly outstrip your proposed $5B budget... ...on the subject of budget cuts, though, some even within the IC believe that significant budget cuts would force IC agencies to actually work together more effectively, and would discourage duplication of effort and and address some of the issues which numerous reviews said were the core problems in the wake of 9/11 (but had actually been a problem long before 9/11). - On the subject of defense budgets, China boosted its defense budget more than 11% for 2012, will reach $240B (more than the rest of the Asia-Pacific region combined) by 2015, and is on track to actually exceed US defense spending by 2020. (!) Are we to believe this is all for "regional defense"? - Some of your other suggestions would be seen as even more hawkish than current US policy!
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aggielawyer
To equate the current situation in the U.S. with totalitarianism is just asinine and diminishes the suffering of those around the world that actually do live under totalitarian regimes. I'm pretty sure in the U.S. we don't have to worry about be caned for looking at a woman the wrong way, women aren't put to death for driving, and women aren't forced to marry their rapists out of some ridiculous sentiment of female virginity. And the activities undertaken by our own agencies nowhere approach the actions of the old East German Stasi- where German citizens were subject to random, warrant-less wiretapping and spying (actual wiretapping, not just checking where their mail was going or coming from, the Cold-War equivalent of a lot of what's going on now), or random middle-of-the-night abductions and interrogations fraught with electrocution and beatings. Those things just don't happen here (I know you'll probably point to waterboarding and rendition, but the fact of the matter is that those things have rarely been applied to U.S. Citizens and waterboarding in and of itself has only been done to a handful of people- leading to huge boons of intelligence and, ultimately, the finding of Osama Bin Laden).
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Thomas Wayne Allen, Son of Frank Thomas Allen, son of Virginia Carnes Allen of Minnesota, USA.
Right, we don't get electrocuted here. Just tased. And beaten when black. Wiretapped when leftist. Spied on when Arab. Pepper-sprayed when occupying. And women won't be subject to rape by their doctors ... unless the new law in Virginia goes through. Also, have you checked out the laws proposed in Arizona? But hey, those things aren't happening to you. Yet. So why should you care?
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Like 1 month ago in reply to aggielawyer 75 Likes F
raycote
Totalitarianism creeps in slowly under the radar covered it chocolate by well paid Madison Avenue public perception management firms. In the 30's most Germans didn't see it coming either and when they did it was too late! Your augment is: I'm sure it can't happen here.
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mule1ear
Thomas Wayne Allen Amen. My question always is: In which direction are we headed? Freedom or Totalitarian? Just because we're not there yet, doesn't mean we won't be there soon.
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JimMNH
Foolish you are. How very foolish, unaware and uneducated in history.
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bookworm438
People like to be over dramatic and think the sky is falling all the time. They don't realize that the fact they have a job (mostly), a house, a car, food that they can go down to the local supermarket to purchase, free to pursue any career they want, as long as they are willing to accept the risks associated with it, means they aren't living under a totalitarian regime. The thing about people complaining about lack of money, they don't realize they are in that situation because they don't try to get out. The government provides programs for you to get out, and get you on the right track, but you have to be willing to partake in them (freedom of choice). Thomas Wayne Allen : Rather than just reading purely what the media says, why not actually look into the situation. The media will always report on the negative side of things to get more readers. More readers = more money for them. They won't report about the other facts. For the taser, would you rather a law enforcement officer use a taser on your or shot you? The first one, you'll feel pain and be knocked down. The second one, you could probably die. "Wiretapped when leftist", um what?
Most of the examples you have given as well, we have laws preventing such a thing. You are blaming the government for the actions of the individual. You can peacefully assemble and protest. Note the word "peacefully". You cannot be on private property (it's private for a reason. You wouldn't want someone on your property would you?), you cannot be throwing things, or displaying riot like behavior, you cannot be using obscenity.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to aggielawyer 1 Like F
Nothing Much
Yes that's right because we have seen through history how intelligence agencies serve the societies they feed off of. I give you the past 10 years as an example of the US under heavy influence of the idea of society serving the needs of intelligence vs intelligence serving society. The past 10 years have seen the fastest decline of American strategic standing in our history. The last decline in American strategic standing was Vietnam, yet another glorious operation run by intelligence agencies. Das you and your cronies cry to the heavens about strategic standing and national security. Yet the more power you have, the more secretive you become the weaker the nation becomes in wealth, the more vulnerable we become to enemies, the less capable our military becomes, and the more inefficient government becomes. Ever ask yourself how we won the Cold War when almost every US intelligence agency was deeply compromised by the KGB, The GRU, and the STASI? Ever ask yourself how when the USSR was in the middle of its death throws Ames, the Walker family, and Hanssen were turning in ALL our 'assets' in the USSR? History lays it on the table. Intelligence is vastly... show more
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to das o 52 Likes
oF bookworm438
So discovering that a potentially dangerous country is building a nuclear weapon, considered intelligence work, is worthless? Knowing the location of your enemy, and their technological plans is worthless?
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Nothing Much 1 Like F
Rodney T Hytonen
There is no such thing as "peaceful protest." numbers - the oly thong that will work- are an ipled threat of violence. If protest is necessary, peaceful means have by definition been exhausted. In a dysfunctional democracy, all dissent is illegal. And MOST of the freedoms you listed in your first post NO LONGER EXIST. Jobs? Homes? Cars? Even the ability (therefore) to afford FOOD or HEAT? Get out of your ivory tower and see how the REAL America (according to numerical preponderance) is living. For a growing many, the answer is "sick, hungry, and in their cars." Do you really think you can 'shame' those folks into doing MORE to extricate themselves if they can't do it now? The corporatist "conservatives" who claim the poor or unemployed are so because they choose it, in ANY way, make me want to retch - ON them. And if they keep up that attitude it will be easy to do just that because the oppressed have risen up, and the oppressors will soon be lying in the streets.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to bookworm438 3 Likes F
Nothing Much
This is such inane response I will answer it with this. Go back to watching television. May I suggest Fox News.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to bookworm438 2 Likes F
Who are the "adversaries" of the U.S.A? Anyone questioning the U.S. government?
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to das o 49 Likes oF The Rust Belt
This is funny, because again and again it looks like the "adversaries" are the people you are sworn to protect.
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to das o 42 Likes oF InnerCynic
Ha! Protect or protect "against"? I'd lay odds on the later.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to The Rust Belt 2 Likes F
raycote
You have ZERO credibility ! Any serious reading of history puts the lie to your epistemologically shallow at best and nefarious at worst assertions. Our trust in government can only be based on open acceptable processes not on having faith in their SECRET good will. The constitution has a purpose and those who subvert it should be held legally accountable for their treasonous behavior.
das
It is impossible for intelligence processes to be completely "open" while still being effective this is not some kind of a new notion foisted upon the public after 9/11; it's a historical fact. Can a lack of complete transparency lead to abuses? History tells us it can. But without secrecy to protect sources and methods, intelligence services fundamentally cannot function. Intelligence is one of our primary instruments in support of foreign policy. In a free society we temper this with law and systems of oversight-by-proxy (for example, FISA/FISC, intelligence oversight in Congress, the Executive Branch, the Inspectors General and General Counsels of the agencies, etc.) Secrecy is required for intelligence work, even in open societies. The balance between that secrecy and principles of transparency and openness in the workings of government is what is important. I would prefer that nations which protect and promote principles of freedom and liberal democracy are able to counter those that don't.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to raycote 8 Likes F
raycote
You are misdirecting the discussion again ! The constitution lays out rules to safeguarding the transparency of governance processes i.e. no undefined unaccountable secret operations.
Secrets about operational goals, general methods and legal adherence by government institutions and their principals has nothing to do with exposing detailed operational secrets within those accountability frameworks!
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Armin Wolff
Security: noun ( pl. -ties) 1 the state of being free from danger or threat, the state of feeling safe, stable, and free from fear or anxiety. How does what the NSA, KGB, Gestapo, CIA, FBI, Mossad or the countless similar agencies in the various governments of the world do, accomplish this? If there were an entity who knows all secrets and all secret thoughts of every person on earth, would that bring security to the people of the Earth? Would such an entity with that very ability define what is good and what is evil? Isn't such an entity normally defined by most people as God? Is that not what the enemy of God promised to that first human in the garden: you shall be as God? Is therefore the striving of the NSA and other similar human agencies, nothing more than a continuation of humans buying that ancient lie, that by gaining forbidden secret knowledge, you will be like God?
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nostrafarious
I would love to see your face when they come to implant your mandatory ID chip in you and your family. Somehow though, I can easily imagine it will be a smile and you will welcome your new overlords.
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InnerCynic
Go back to your NSA paid for cubicle. You're an example of a deliberate "plant" sent to distribute inane arguments on behalf of the very powers destroying and enslaving us all.
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Bob F
What about the program isn't open. The NSA swallows up ALL communications. That is not a secret. You speak as if there is some kind of secret that would justify this program but we just can't be told about it. I call BS.
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das
Bob F A couple of points: most intelligence practitioners would tell you that even if NSA wanted to to say nothing of being authorized to "swallow up" all communications, it could not do so, and that even if it could, it could never hope to sort through it all. Also, the NSA can't "swallow up" the content of the communications of US Persons without an individualized warrant. It just can't, because it's a severe violation of the law. Whatever controversies existed after 9/11 with respect to more aggressive SIGINT collection were made crystal clear with the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which requires an individual court warrant to target a US Person anywhere on the globe. Even the most egregious examples of "warrantless wiretapping" (as alleged in the leaks to the press, or documented in various court proceedings) in the wake of 9/11 targeted very specific people and were justified by the Justice Department, secretly reported to Congress, and reauthorized every 45 days. Note I am not making a value judgment of whether this was a good or bad idea: I am merely stating a fact.The "program" you're taking about is just NSA's day-to-day work, which is foreign signals intelligence, and you're absolutely right: in general terms, it's not secret. What is secret, as with all intelligence disciplines, is the sources and methods.For example, the primary job of the CIA National Clandestine Service is human intelligence. That is public, and we know exactly what "human intelligence" is. What we don't know is CIA's sources and how they are developed. So how do we know CIA is doing the "right thing"? The only answer is the law and oversight, and the oversight of the Intelligence Community has never been public or open. Does this mean it's easier to hide
things? For a discipline whose job is keeping and stealing secrets, of course. But even it has checks and balances. You don't have to believe it, but it doesn't make it not true. In fact, the oversight processes are public. At most, you can simply believe that secret oversight isn't as effective as open oversight. Perhaps so. But without secrecy, intelligence is utterly ineffective.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Bob F F
raycote I'm sorry, but I'm not misdirecting the discussion, and what you assert is simply not true: the intelligence services have lawfully kept secrets on processes, capabilities, and techniques not just the intelligence collected itself long before 9/11. Oversight processes and frameworks themselves have also even been secret. Now you may disagree on whether this is proper, but that's a separate discussion. This is not a new concept for the practice of intelligence, and I'm simply relating things as they are.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to raycote 2 Likes F
Andrew Tubbiolo
Your argument is still somewhat circular. What we do know is this, most of the types of secrets being discussed here are being kept secret from the people of the nations that pay the bills. Do you really think the methods and capabilities of the NRO and NSA are a secret to the FRS? The MSS? Really? You might be keeping secrets from the intelligence agencies of nations like Tonga, but for the most part the real secrets are kept from the people. The scientists and engineers reverse engineering American national technical means are more than capable of backing out what we can do and what can be done to hide or spoof as much as they can. The human breaches of the American intelligence field by the Russiand and Chinese are by now well known. We know that US humint is compromised for decades at a time at very deep levels. Most secrets are important for a few months at best. Very very few secrets that have been put out in the open when you look at the era they were operating, turn up to be really important. What intelligence agencies in the 'free world' nations need is a... show more
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raycote
Yes the constitution has indeed been ignored long before 9/11. That's the problem such political behaviour has become the norm to the point where most people no longer question it!
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L Lovell
Das, your blind loyalty to the gov't is sickening!"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." and "The way to be safe is never to be secure." Benjamin Franklin
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to das o 26 Likes oF das
I spoke to exactly your first quote in not one, but two of my other comments. In fact, I brought it up myself. We can and do deserve a good measure of BOTH liberty AND security, and it's not a zero-sum sliding scale. For what it's worth, I can't find a reliable attribution to Benjamin Franklin for the second quote. I'm quite glad you got the first one right usually it omits the words "essential" and "temporary", completely destroying all context.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to L Lovell 1 Like F
Dwayne Hoover
Give it a rest. You are just another anti-Constitutional neo-con military fascist who won't be satisfied till ever American is being monitored 24/7....for "security" purposes. Jeez, why don't you just go ahead and make the argument, "What...if you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear (wink, wink, eh!)".
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InnerCynic
Dwayne Hoover Don't waste your keystrokes on this idiot. He and bookworm438 are more than likely the same cat. It's all an op to keep people arguing with these planted lunatics. Ignore them. Hell, I wish the powers that be would ban hammer them and then you'd actually get some clear discussion here. You see, even these two knuckleheads, with their pretzel logic can't argue against that.
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das
InnerCynic LOL, it's good to see this kind of lunacy come out. Accusations of "plants", a secret "op", sock puppets, etc., with no actual acknowledgment or discussion of anything I said, just because you disagree with it. I hate to break your carefully constructed paranoia, but I'm just a person like you, with my own thoughts, not being paid by anyone, commenting on this story, with one account. Congratulations also on your suggestion that a viewpoint with which you disagree should be banned. The irony is just delicious. I haven't said anything that is unclear, have not used "pretzel logic", and have not resorted to personal attacks unlike people like you. You can disagree with how things are being done, but why not try to have a discussion not entirely couched in logical fallacies?
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bookworm438
Dwayne Hoover : I have seen nothing in his posts that suggest that. In fact, I found most of his posts free of emotion and rational. And most importantly, educated. Not taking what the media says word for word. In order for any government to exist, you have to give up some of your rights. That's just the nature of government. To what extent you give up your rights, that's dependent on the type of government and the times. *Most* of the things I've seen the government doing, I can see a case being made for it's constitutionality. People see the constitution as this clear-cut definitive things. Whereas I think most people who throw around the word "unconstitutional" has probably never even read the constitution. The constitution is actually very fluid. It can, and will change depending on the times. That's the way it was designed. In order for a country to be viable, the government has to be flexible enough to deal with the challenges of the specific time period. The founding fathers never could have guessed that we'd have the power to destroy the world, or would have non-nation-state groups attempting to destroy us. It's up to the Supreme Court to decide how the constitution should be read. Since the Supreme Court changes over time, there will be different views, and as such, the meaning of specific phrases within the constitution will change. What Das is saying is that we need to find that balance of what we give up for extra security in our time. He's not saying we should just throw all of our rights away.
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We wouldn't have any adversaries or insecurities provoking us to be such nit-picking, nosy, spying twerps if we just left other countries alone! There is already information overload and garbage to weed through. Do we think we are gods needing to know all there is to know? Well, newsflash! We'll never know all we think we need to know and where does the whole thing end before we suffer massive paranoia (perhaps we already do) and suspect every single other human being on the planet? Such expensive and massive nonsense is this intelligence gathering when our leaders ignore it all anyway and tell us lies to take us to war with anything that moves! Why can't we all just 'live' before there is no time left for living and while we are at it, allow the other guy to live too. Get our presence out of every bodies country and the world will live in peace. We are NOT the peacemakers, but rather the war mongers.
Because, Cyyndy, even if it was possible to go completely and totally isolationist and/or not interact with any other nation on the earth in what you personally perceive to be a negative way, there actually are other powers in the world that actively seek to promote their own agendas, all by themselves without any catalyst from the US. Sort of like how
the world was for all of human history before a little over two centuries ago. Hint: Many of these other powers don't subscribe to principles of freedom and liberal democracy. I really wish people who think the US is the source of evil in the world could see what the world would look like now without its influence. Do you really believe it would be so much better or even better at all? Would Western Europe still even exist? What would become of democratic ideals? Would we even have the internet? (Dead serious answer: probably not.) Your sentiment is nice, but all of that living and let living is nothing but a nice sentiment without being able to protect the interests of ourselves and our allies.
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Cyyndy
What is so great about our Democracy? I think it's broken. We have had a handful of current presidents already usurping the powers that were nicely balanced between the three branches when our Democracy began. You have to be a multimillionaire to run for office and then those we elect do as they please and ignore the common man anyway? Who, or what country, with all their mental faculties intact, would want to be like us? I am sick of hearing that 'they' want what we have. It is more they don't want us to force what we have down their throats. Democracy is a nice theory, but it isn't working and we are heading to Fascism very quickly in this country. All you have to do is stick around and watch or speak up against the evil from within before trying to conquer the evil from outside.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to das 5 Likes
wysinwyg
Overused Churchill quote is overused. US is not a democracy any more assuming it ever was.
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das
wysinwyg Successful troll is successful. Ugh... Depends on what you think of as "democracy". Some would be quick to say the US was never a democracy, and is in fact a representative republic. Others would ignorantly say the US is a tyrannical or fascist state, or approaching it, and I would simply observe that those people have no clue what tyranny or fascism actually is if they think the US is anywhere near either. The question is, were the systems in the old Soviet Union and Soviet bloc better? Is China better? Are most of the many governments in the Middle East? Africa? I can envision several answers: 1. "Yes, they are better." I don't think this would be your answer, but if it is, we would simply be in fundamental disagreement.
2. "No, they're not better, but just because we're not as bad as they are isn't something to be happy about." Well, we're utterly nowhere near states like those, and it's a not black or white; it's a fluid scale and we're on the "freedom" end of it. 3. "There are nations in [Europe or insert other place here] that have more freedom than the US." First, that is your opinion; second, the only reason they are able to have that freedom is because it has been defended, directly and indirectly, by guess who? The reason Churchill's quote is "overused" is because its exactly right. "Democracy" or things that approximate it may be downright ugly systems of government, but they are FAR better than the alternatives. Do yo believe the world would be a better place, in terms of human rights and human life, if the US and/or modern West didn't exist, even with all of their mistakes and imperfections?
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Like 1 month ago in reply to wysinwyg F
das
Cyyndy "Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." - Winston Churchill (18741965), Speech in the House of Commons, November 11, 1947
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Kevin Gray
Tut tut, deleting perfectly innocent comments really does show your true colours. I merely said we are to assume many things in life, our cars being stolen, our house being broken into, being mugged. We are taught to be aware of dangers that "may" lurk around the corner!
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to das o 1 Like oF das
Kevin Gray What are you talking about? Your other comment is still posted. It just no longer shows at the top, and instead shows inline with the thread. No one is deleting anything.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Kevin Gray F
Kevin Gray
Are we not lead to believe our houses or cars can be stolen or broken into? Aren't we to assume life is dangerous and we should be careful?
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to das o 1 Like oF Actiance, Inc
Great article!
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KMatthew
reply to DoctorNine: This point needs to be made explicitly: the government does not "monitor all communications all the time". This is an absurd notion. Your communications right now are not being monitored unless you are a legitimate foreign intelligence target. EDIT: Or if your are a suspect in an ongoing criminal investigation; warrants are required for both.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to DoctorNine F
DoctorNine
The absurd notion, is that you know the extent of the monitoring well enough, that you can make such an assurance that no such monitoring is occurring, or that it will not occur, once the technology is in place. Perhaps YOU know of no such program. However, your lack of knowledge of such a thing, is by no means proof that it does not exist, or that it isn't -being planned and built right now- in Utah.
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to KMatthew o 39 Likes oF KMatthew
True, from a logical prospective, if my statement was part of a deductive exercise, you would absolutely be correct; what I said would be a false assumption. And maybe you could argue that I am making a semantic distinction, and that the essence of what you said holds true...but maybe you really can't. Whatever I do or do not know is irrelevant; the point is that YOU do not know. So why speculate that the claim of legitimate foreign intelligence collection needs are nothing more then a guise for more nefarious machinations? I understand the imagination will always kick into gear when ever there are gaps in knowledge, but why automatically assume ill intent?
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DoctorNine
JohnnyLA is correct; Occam's Razor. Governments don't build such an intrusive apparatus, and then rarely use them. Inevitably, there will be one more grey area; one more personal reason for an agent to look at the secrets of those in his life; one more place where those charged with the safety of the citizens overstep their authority. And in so doing, these secret systems, even if built initially with robust safeguards, devolve, and then morph into something like the East German Stasi, or the secret police of Pinochet. It is almost an inevitability. There are reasons why the framers of the Constitution felt that public debate and discussion were a requirement in forging law and attendant governmental structures. This isn't an optional nicety. The knowledge and consent of the governed is -required- to ensure the legitimacy of the government.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to KMatthew 34 Likes F
jeffinoregon
"I understand the imagination will always kick into gear when ever there are gaps in knowledge, but why automatically assume ill intent?" WHY? easy answer summed up in just one word.... HISTORY!!
How about what we DO know ( or at least some of us) about a few thousand years of history? Let's consider the overall "history of governments". What does this history show has eventually come to pass in just about every case, when a large centralized government operates in secrecy? What has eventually happened in just about every case of ANY government in history that has become large and centralized? Can anyone show me just one example in history of a large centralized government that has NOT spied on it's own citizens?? I would suggest to you that history can fill in a lot of said "gaps in knowledge"!! Here's a quote for you, see if you can guess who said it and how far back in history this goes.... ""Come, let us deal wisely with them, or else they will multiply and in the event of war, they will also join themselves to those who hate us, and fight against us and depart from the land." This... show more
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JohnnyLA
"So why speculate that the claim of legitimate foreign intelligence collection needs are nothing more then a guise for more nefarious machinations?" For me it's Occam's Razor. " All other things being equal, a simpler explanation is better than a more complex one."
Isn't is easier when brute force cracking ALL correspondence they find that they don't filter between "foreign" or "domestic"? That the temptation to use this on U.S. citizens "for our own good" wouldn't happen? Who watches the Watchmen? It's certainly not us, is it?
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Drew Carlton
It's important to keep an open mind from both perspectives and examine all possibilities. Yes, we do not know for certain how the government intends to / will use this equipment. At the moment, it is just as fair to state they they will use it appropriately as it is to state that they will use it against all American citizens. While the author of this article has cited individuals suggesting that it will be or even already is being used against American citizens, there is no hard evidence supporting this fact. I believe this is the point you are getting at, which is completely valid. However, given the allegations that it is or is intended to be used against American citizens, it is important to investigate this possibility. If I stated that your neighbor secretly abducted individuals and murdered them, you would have no evidence to suggest that this was true or false. Under your assumption, it is simpler to state that this isn't true. The man said it's a lie, and why would someone commit such a terrible and immoral act? However, once the allegation is raised, it would be not only foolish but dangerous to ignore it... show more
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1 month ago in reply to KMatthew 19 Likes F
KMatthew
"Governments don't build such an intrusive apparatus, and then rarely use them." In reply to both JohnnyLA and DoctorNine The gentlemen in the article states that we are inches away from a "turnkey totalitarian state." I would venture to say that both of you agree with that statement. While I would agree that the general public must always maintain an healthy amount of suspicion, I would argue that that statement is a gross characterization of reality. To me, the simpler explanation would be the government is using these purported capabilities for their stated purposes; to better facilitate foreign intelligence collection. As is often the case in life, I think it really just comes down to perspective.
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wysinwyg
das, hundreds of thinkers throughout history have acknowledged that there is a trade-off between liberty and security. You repeating 89 times that "it's not zerosum!" doesn't change the fact that it doesn't sum to 100% either. Intelligence and security budgets have ballooned over the last two decades without any attempt to
inform the people paying for as to why except to repeat the "terrorists!" litany over and over again. For those of us who lack your superstitious faith that acting on behalf of the U.S. government means you can't possibly perpetrate a moral wrong, why should we trust you?
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das
Drew Carlton Your comment is thoughtful. But the quote you invoke at the end, and one which I agree is often raised in debate on these topics, is not the quote. To reiterate something I said in another comment in this thread: The quote is, "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." The words "Essential" and "Temporary" add critical context, and the distinction is important. Even more important is that it's subjective: it's not a truism to say that any trade of "liberty" for "security" is bad or wrong; similarly, it's not true to presume it's a zero-sum sliding scale, wherein liberty must always be permanently sacrificed in equal amount for safety, or vice versa. We can and should have a measure of both, and we charge our government with providing us with both not one or the other, as if they're coins that can somehow be traded. As a society bound by a social contract and living under the rule of law, we already give up certain freedoms for safety and security. Conversely, other freedoms are guaranteed. The key is finding a balance, and finding ways to enhance security without infringing upon liberty.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to KMatthew 1 Like F
Tom Buffone
Like with GPS tracking?
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to KMatthew o 8 Likes oF KMatthew
As is usually the case with the appropriation of new technology/methodology, the law plays catchup. But the point has to be reiterated, the individuals the FBI was tracking were part of legitimate criminal investigations; there was no blanket surveillance of an entire demographic or populous. And there is a fair argument to be made that the Supreme Courts decision on the subject was not consistent with previous related decisions. But that doesn't really matter at this point, because now they need a warrant.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Tom Buffone F
Tom Buffone
What did the other 4 rule?
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Tom Buffone
For putting an item on your car or just turning it on?
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KMatthew
In reply to Tom Buffone: "For putting an item on your car or just turning it on?" What was interesting about the decision was that they only addressed whether placing a GPS tracking device on a car fell under the prevue of the 4th amendment as a physical search/seizure. They said it was, and I think that is an interesting interpretation. What was surprising was that they did not address whether GPS tracking was a violation of your expectation of privacy. I would argue that it is not,
and this issue is bound to resurface in the future as new technology gets appropriated for law enforcement purposes.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to KMatthew F
Roy Mayhall
To KMatthew and das: Speculation and opinions of all on the topic of is the Gov't now doing good/bad helping us etc., should be viewed from the perspective of those that founded our Gov't. This is why I love my country (and why I think you are devoted to it as well) and why it has been such a powerful force in the world with good people as its citizens. Please read their views and think about yours in the context of, "Is our current government acting in the spirit of the constitution that they have sworn to uphold?" In time of actual war, great discretionary powers are constantly given to the Executive Magistrate. Constant apprehension of War, has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence agst. foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people. -James Madison: Speech, Constitutional... show more
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to KMatthew o 7 Likes oF
Guest
Actually all your information including phone calls and other communications are stored on a server somewhere. They just need a warrant to access it. So yes you are being monitored. They just need a warrant to actually read it. Warrants are provided based on suspicion. Suspicion is a vague term.
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to KMatthew o 5 Likes oF Lefim
Actually, Aaron, LEO's obtain search warrants by convincing a judge or magistrate that they have "probable cause" to believe that criminal activity is occurring at the place to be searched or that evidence of a crime may be found there. That is a different and higher standard than mere suspicion.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Guest F
Kai Lucas-Baradan
Or if the NSA sets up servers in the central offices of the major telcos like they already did several years ago and never stopped doing?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to KMatthew o 4 Likes oF Ryan Singel
das - That all sounds rather nice and sensible, but it's also missing the entire point. What the TSP and FISA Amendment Act did was to turn the entire American telecommunications system, including the internet, into a giant surveillance mechanism for the NSA -- which violated its CORE principle - don't spy on Americans. The 2008 FISA Amendments Act was passed thanks to lies and misinformation spread at the highest levels, including the BS story about how the NSA couldn't track a Yahoo e-mail address when a soldier was kidnapped in Iraq. It also stripped Americans of the simple right to have a court judge the legality of the nation's telecoms secretly turning over their communications to the government, without bothering to comply with the laws that require warrants. And if you need any more proof that this system will certainly be abused, please re-read the history of the warrantless wiretapping of Americans, the Al-Haramain case where a federal judge found the TSP to be illegal, the fight over retroactive immunity for AT&T et. al, and the Inspector General's reports on how the FBI abuses National Security Letters. As for your Article II argument, may I suggest you go re-read the Youngstown decision in light of the Congressionally passed FISA, which makes it a FELONY to spy on Americans inside the U.S. without a warrant. Wartime powers DON'T override the law of the land. Please take your bundle of smooth statements to the Washington Post's editorial board, where they'll buy what you are selling. Wired readers and reporters know better.
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das
Ryan Singel I hope you're kidding, because the Article II argument and the FISA landscape pre-FISA Amendments Act of 2008 are not incompatible. I'm well aware of the questionable landscape from 2001 to 2007/2008, well aware of the controversy with TSP, and spoke to exactly that in my post but it's now 2012. The issue is that people think that situation still exists today. What puzzles me even more is that you never seem to address the fact that NSA's primary purpose and function is foreign SIGINT. An average reader of this article with no visibility on these issues is going to assume that all NSA is doing is spying on Americans. A key feature of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 was to allow for targeting of traffic of non-US Persons when that traffic travels through the US without a warrant, while judiciously and clearly protecting US Persons, whether they may be inside or outside of the US. And it's not "my" Article II argument, by the way. The same essential argument has been made by the Attorneys General of both the Bush and Obama administrations. It's incredibly irresponsible to paint the Intelligence Community as if its only goal is to spy on American citizens. What is most confusing to me is that you're talking to me as if I'm somehow defending or even promoting warrantless spying on US Persons I acknowledged there was a controversial landscape in the years after 9/11, but that the law since 2008 effectively erases those gray areas.
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in reply to Ryan Singel 3 Likes F
Scott Thill
Spying, on anyone and everyone, is exactly all the NSA is doing today, and yesterday. It certainly isn't forestalling any "terrorist" attacks, now is it? The argument that 2012 is different from 2001, or Orwell's 1984 for that matter, is so laughably naive that it's insulting to have to point it out. And I bet both Orwell and Borges would agree. But I have another question that this article did not examine enough to my satisfaction. Just how in the world are we going to power this surveillance nightmare? Coal? Solar? Wind? Bunnies? It's an environmentally and economically unsustainable boondoggle, which should become readily apparent by the middle of this century, if not sooner.
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to das o 27 Likes oF Ryan Singel
Calling the rampant, secret lawbreaking of the warrantless wiretapping program a "questionable landscape" says all anyone needs to know about your spin. Once again, with feeling, the warrantless wiretapping program was so awful that ASHCROFT threatened to quit.
Tim Garrett
das is with Naval Fleet Cyber Command. He has to believe what he says to avoid the intense feelings of guilt.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Ryan Singel 14 Likes F
Dwayne Hoover
>, but that the law since 2008 effectively erases those gray areas. LOL! Are you completely unfamiliar with Narus or are you just a paid shill for the NSA?
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to das o 6 Likes oF guerojose
Well, thanks for that exhaustive - and pointless - effort to minimize the issue. Lengthy discussions of what "nuanced" laws allow or disallow are ultimately meaningless. The NSA and other governmental organs have repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to circumvent or ignore any legal or constitutional restrictions, or oversight. The warrantless wiretapping is only one recent example. No constitutional principles or legal restrictions matter to these people, because they're convinced that Right is on their side, and that all can be
sacrificed in the name of "security". And their ability to operate with utter secrecy and unlimited resources places them simply beyond the reach of any moderating influence.
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roastytoasty
I'm adding on to your comment guerojose by suggesting people here get a copy of Mark Twain's "Life On The Mississippi" and check out the SENSE OF LIBERTY that pours off every page. "Life On The Mississippi" was published just before the Civil War broke out and hasn't ever been out of print since. Even tho the terrible vibe of civil war was in the air while "Life On The Mississippi" was being written the way in which Mark Twain describes the towns and the people along his beloved Mississippi River is drenched with eloquent appreciation for the Great Liberty of Life in the young United States. Out-ofcontrol-unionized-hive-mind BUREAUCRACY insulates and suffocates our Sense of Liberty which is precisely the element of living-and-being that makes the U.S.A. preeminently exceptional in the history of nations.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to guerojose 2 Likes F
Ryan Singel
For those looking for a factual counterpoint to DAS -
The court case DAS cites Smith v. Maryland has long been supreseded by an act of Congress known as the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which requires legal process to examine metadata of Americans' communications. The only normal court to ever get to rule on the warrantless wiretapping program found that it was illegal and awarded damages to two Americans spied on by the government without warrants. And when the Bush Administration finally agreed, after much political pressure, to let the super secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to rule on the warrantless wiretapping program, the court IMMEDIATELY struck it down. That set off two years of fear-mongering from the DNI and President, until Congress was finally strong-armed into legalizing wholesale wiretaps inside the U.S.. That's the very reason the NSA is expanding so much - they are vacuuming up everything - foreign and domestic. The bill that "legalized" the warrantless wiretapping program has never been tested in court - because anytime a lawsuit comes near to challenging it, the Obama and Bush administration throw up the spectre of "state secrets" to have the challenge thrown out. After years of the NSA violating... show more (Edited by author 1 month ago)
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das
But Ryan Singel , that still does not invalidate anything I said in my comment. There has never been a question that there is a legal process to examine communications metadata of US Persons; but that metadata is not off limits. The content of the communication, however, is. Whether or not there have been abuses, real or perceived, actions that were asserted legal at one point and later found by a court of competent jurisdiction to be not so, or actions that one might personally perceive to be an abuse that have never been tested in a court also doesn't invalidate my comment.
How would you suggest that NSA target foreign communications that is routinely traveling through UScontrolled networks on US soil, when that same communication does not require a warrant, and never has, if it does not enter the US? Should the US be enjoined from foreign surveillance simply because the communication enters the US? How exactly should the US conduct foreign SIGINT in a digital world? Or should NSA be enjoined from conducting any foreign surveillance within the US? This has nothing to do with scaremongering it's a legitimate question that deserves an answer. If you simply believe NSA shouldn't be able to conduct foreign SIGINT under any circumstance without complete and absolute transparency, which itself would require revealing sources, methods, and capabilities, then we're simply in fundamental disagreement. But WIRED's readers deserve a more balanced view of the purposes and functions of NSA, instead of the contented perception that its sole activity since 9/11 has been exclusively spying on Americans and violating the law at every turn. What abuses some real, some perceived, some a matter of opinion may have occurred does not suddenly invalidate the need for foreign intelligence.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Ryan Singel 2 Likes F
Ryan Singel
DAS - You are repeating the fallacy that if an e-mail sent from japan to say pakistan goes through internet tubes that pass through the U.S. that it then could not *legally* be intercepted by the NSA without a warrant. That's just plain false. The NSA always has been allowed to intercept those e-mails. They just had to collect them NOT on U.S. soil OR go get a warrant from a pliant secretive court that specifies who and what is being targeted inside the U.S. The easiest way to do this is by finding a way to wiretap the fiber optic cable going into Pakistan.
What the NSA wanted -- and what it got from Bush (with an upvote from then Sen. Obama) was a legislated way to order AT&T, Google, Level3, et. al., to have to siphon giants swaths of data, including Americans' communications into NSA databases. That's what this story is about. I and many others think that collection is plainly illegal. American telecom and internet infrastructure should not be an arm of the NSA. As the doormat says, come back with a warrant.
Ryan Singel I completely understand what you are saying, but the reasoning for doing foreign intelligence collection on US soil is not fallacious. I agree that NSA can intercept and has routinely done so foreign communications that at some point may traverse US soil or equipment. As you say, the key is that this collection must be done outside of the US. Listening posts on ship, land, and other collection tools have done this for decades. However, as you're also aware, the explosion of digital communications not traveling via a wireless media has made collection more difficult. Wiretapping communications outside of the US can be extremely expensive and often may be untenable or impractical depending on the region.
All the while, the US was aware that more and more foreign communications that would ordinarily be fair game for collection outside of the US was traveling through equipment on US soil. This excerpt (An 'Intel Gap': What We're Missing, Newsweek, Aug 6, 2007) sums up the issue: --The intel gap results partly from rapid changes in the technology carrying much of the world's message traffic (principally telephone calls and e-mails). The National Security Agency is falling so far behind in upgrading its infrastructure to cope with the digital age that the agency has had problems with its electricity supply, forcing some offices to temporarily shut down. The gap is also partly a result of administration fumbling over legal authorization for eavesdropping by U.S. agencies. The post-Watergate Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) required a warrant for eavesdropping on people in the U.S. But after 9/11, the administration asserted that warrants weren't needed to surveil communications involving suspected terrorists even inside the U.S. The controversy over "warrantless wiretapping" made intel officials gunshy about eavesdropping even on messages they would have regarded as fair game before 9/11. According to both administration and congressional officials (anonymous when discussing such issues), the White House and intelligence czar's office are now urgently trying to negotiate a legal fix with Congress that would make it easier for NSA to eavesdrop on e-mails and phone calls where all parties are located outside the U.S., even if at some point the message signal crosses into U.S. territory. Much of the electronic communications NSA once pored over, between two parties communicating with each other outside the U.S., used to travel via satellite or radiolike signal, leaving NSA free to pluck the messages out of the air. Technological innovations, however, have shifted more and more trafficboth e-mail and telephone callsto hardwired or fiberoptic networks, many of which have critical switching or transit facilities inside the U.S. Therefore, intel-collection officials concluded that FISA court authorizations should be obtained to eavesdrop not just on messages where at least one party is inside the country, but also for eavesdropping on messages between two parties overseas that pass through U.S. communications gear. Two officials familiar with the controversy, who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive material, said that had
the administration initially been candid about its antiterror surveillance plans, it could have worked with Congress years ago to tweak the FISA laws to account for the technological changes. One of the officials said the administration's secretiveness had, in this case, created problems for antiterrorism efforts. --So we got the stopgap Protect America Act of 2007, and the ultimate changes in the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, along with the August 2008 FISC ruling. A lot of things were done immediately after 9/11 which were justified whether rightly or not by the AUMF. It took several years for the law to catch up to the urgency of what was happening after 9/11. If I'm understanding you, you're making the case that foreign communications should not be targeted or collected within the US at all without a warrant, because the infrastructure required to do so is too broad, uses telecommunications operators as NSA partners, and could also, from a technical standpoint, be used to collect on US Persons. I disagree. Put it another way: what stops NSA from collecting on US Persons from outside of the US? The law? Whatever your answer, that's the same construct that prevents NSA from improperly collecting on US Persons now. Is the argument that this can be "abused more", or more easily? What threshold has been crossed that means we shouldn't pluck targeted foreign communications from systems under our own control? I'm not saying your position is invalid; I'm saying that I do not believe collection of foreign intelligence, and the mechanisms required to target and identify those communications in the sea of all traffic, is "plainly illegal". In fact, the current law, if anything, makes it plainly legal.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Ryan Singel 1 Like F
mayeramschel
I'm a German and I just can say: Welcome to 1984. In Germany the article is linked on sites against "Spy-Gov.". And you have to discuss that !! What the NSA is doing in Utah is a bad, bad thing. And.... das - who pays you for your work here ? I mean answering the comments ? The NSA ? I think so. "Thoughtcrime does not entail death. Thoughtcrime IS death" (Winston Smith)
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Brian Gutierrez
did you not read the part of the article about the NSA listening center who was spying on the reportrer calling home from abroad??? they are spying on everybody, everywhere, and for you to sit and pretend that it is ok is disgusting.. i honestly hope you choke and die...
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Ryan Singel
DSA you are just making things up. ECPA clearly makes it illegal to collect and sift through Americans' meta-data. That law was passed AFTER and in reaction to the Smith ruling. Nothing in the FISA Amendments act trumps that, since it ostensibly *requires* that the targets of surveillance done inside the U.S. be non-U.S. persons. Our coverage has been VERY clear that the NSA's job is to spy on non-Americans. In fact, wed love it if that's what the agency focussed on. But we are also VERY concerned about the FISA Amendment's act real focus which is turning America's telecom infrastructure into a giant siphon for the NSA. As for doing surveillance in the U.S., NSA should do it exactly as they had been. Get a fucking particularized warrant, not install an always-on spy rooms in the nation's infrastructure and communications services. And then do what the NSA has always done - find a way to spy on the lines OUTSIDE the U.S. Both the warrantless wiretapping program and the FISA Amendments Act are illegal on their face, dangerous to democracy and that a real Article III court should be able to hear the challenges to the case.
Ryan Singel It's not about "sift[ing] through Americans' metadata" for the sake of it. How can your (correct) statement that "targets of surveillance done inside the U.S. be non-U.S. persons" be reconciled with no requisite capability to identify and extract the traffic that can be lawfully targeted? That is, if there is, say, a particular email address or other sufficiently unique identifier for a non-US Person which is lawfully authorized for targeting, how can that traffic be
targeted without necessarily examining the traffic metadata which identifies it as such? Furthermore, how can that process be completely transparent without compromising sources and methods? That's precisely the "intel gap" that the FISA Amendments Act aimed, in part, to address. If you don't like Mike McConnell's statements on the Act, then take Dianne Feinstein's: "This bill, in some respects, improves even on the base bill, the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It provides clear protections for U.S. persons both at home and abroad. It ensures that the Government cannot conduct electronic surveillance on an American anywhere in the world without a warrant. No legislation has done that up to this point."
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Ryan Singel 1 Like F
Andrew Tubbiolo
Das you have to admit it looks rather strange you're all over this subject. What I really enjoy is your implication at some sort of social malfunction that I would ask why you are hovering all over this subject. A basic analysis of the volume of typed text and the time stamps leads even the most dull mind that this is a subject near and dear to something with you. A paycheck makes some sense. ... So it's your heart? .... You have a burning desire for the US G to suck up store and analyze the worlds communications? You want to live in that kind of world? Dude, that's creepy. I guess it's a measure of differences in human outlook. You actively put real hard work into structuring arguments advocating for the US G to act at a level of paranoia that is unprecedented in human history. Yet you imply that there is something wrong with me for questioning the obvious. How strange.
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Andrew Tubbiolo
Who's paying your salary to hover over this subject. Almost have the posts here are you. You must be being paid for this. I'm on my lunch hour, but by your time stamps, you're at this day and night. What gives?
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jeffinoregon
" If you don't like Mike McConnell's statements on the Act, then take Dianne Feinstein's:" Now your asking us to trust the words of a wretched wench who is one of the strongest proponents in the entire congress of disarming the American people?? And since when (especially post 1872) has ANY legislation ever prevented any government abuses of power or the dismantling of freedom?? Not to mention those who get to operate in such secrecy.The long and vast history of large centralized governments screams at me not to trust the intentions of those funding or operating this facility in Utah any further than I could push one of it's 25,000 sq.ft. buildings with a Ford 4x4 pick up.
OH YEAH.... I almost forgot - since government has NO money other than that which it gets from us, I guess that means we Americans are the ones funding it. HEY.....you guys really are tricky!!
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Andrew Tubbiolo
Hhahha. Fair enough Das. Now I'm hovering.... Guilty as charged, and I'm still at work.
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das
Andrew Tubbiolo What can I say? I'm off today. :-)
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Like 1 month ago in reply to das F
slipperypeople
[nevermind you answered this]
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das
Andrew Tubbiolo No one's paying me to "hover over" anything. (If it makes you feel better to think so, though, be my guest...)
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Feargus Stewart
Wait. Ryan Singel - " known as the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which requires legal process to examine metadata of Americans' communications. " das -- " that still does not invalidate anything I said in my comment.... but that metadata is not off limits " There's an immediate invalidation that should be dealt with, instead of running down tangents. Also: das --"How exactly should the US conduct foreign SIGINT in a digital world? Or should NSA be enjoined from conducting any foreign surveillance within the US?"
This is a false dichotomy. Either we catch Americans in the net of foreign intelligence, or we don't get foreign intelligence. If the law states that no American data can be caught and kept, only catch and release, and yet the NSA is draining the lake without considering all the fish swimming in it, then that is a problem. They are explicitly breaking the law.If they are not doing so, then such should be plainly stated.
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to das o 7 Likes oF Feargus Stewart
My question: I, as a US citizen, am protected currently. It is illegal to collect my data. But the article, at least, states that the data is indeed being collected, if not yet examined. They've got the internet firehose directed at their tanks, and aren't discriminating until they look at it. Is my data tossed after it has been examined? Isn't that bass-ackward from the legal situation, where it shouldn't be collected at all?
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Ryan Singel
It is not tossed and the notion that "metadata" is being wholesale collected and data-mined is very scary. You can easily start to traverse "communities of interest" and end up as a terrorism suspect because you happen to run a pizza place that Afghanis frequent. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01..., yes, the NSA does de-anonymizes American's conversations and shows off the content of their conversations without a warrant and without getting punished.http://pubrecord.org/nation/2218/nsa-...
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Feargus Stewart 10 Likes F
das
The law is a lot more nuanced than that, but it's very explicit: the content of the communications of US Persons is off limits without a properly adjudicated warrant. However, in order to target communications of non-US Persons whose traffic may be traversing networks within the US, the traffic metadata MUST be examined. Our legal system and oversight mechanisms endeavor to prevent people from doing the wrong thing police officers "can" kill people with guns; does that mean they shouldn't have weapons? The mistake here is thinking that because an intelligence agency "can" do something, it MUST be doing just that. The secrecy of the IC encourages questions. History has shown there are mistakes and abuses. But the solution isn't to throw up our hands and say we can't do anything while adversaries who, by the way, would view foreign traffic coming into their borders as a godsend aren't standing still. The solution as an open society based on the rule of law is to have a robust and rich set of oversight mechanisms.
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Ryan Singel
Name the "robust and rich" set of oversights in the FISA Amendments Act. And no the secret FISA court does not count.
The FISA Amendments Act isn't the only or even a chief arbiter of oversight for the Intelligence Community, but yes, the FISC counts, as does Congress, and numerous other DOD and IC oversight mechanisms, many of which speak specifically to issues, rules, and requirements relating to US Persons. If these don't meet your approval because the oversight mechanisms are not completely public and transparent, then you're not ever going to accept any system of IC oversight as valid.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Ryan Singel F
Ronald Hinchley
The FISA Court needs one of those electronic signatures that banks use to foreclose on homes. I mean, these guys are human beings right? The word I am looking for is quaint.
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himura_kenshin
Here's the problem. Police have tools in place to limit their use of weapons. When a police officer shoots someone, it's published in the newspapers and inquiries are made. This system being built scoops up data and voice communications without prejudice and places it in long-term storage. Source and destination are irrelevant - domestic and foreign, benign and harmful are scooped up, data-mined and cataloged - WITHOUT oversight. Our leaders have shown that they are cowards (FISA Amendments Act of 2008) and have abdicated their responsibilities to protecting us from abuse. This system is the digital equivalent of declaring marital law on the entire planet.
Feargus Stewart
Right. So, is the law currently allowing Behavior A, or Behavior B. Behavior A: All data is collected. Later, the metadata is inspected, and the contents of all packets belonging to me is marked as off-limits, but still remains in the collection. Behavior B: All packets have metadata inspected. Any not belonging to a U.S. citizen are kept. Those belonging to U.S. citizens are discarded. This is an important distinction. Behavior A leaves me susceptible to a lot more future danger, from the NSA or hackers, than behavior B.
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to das o 2 Likes oF spicynujac
How does a spy agency determine citizenship?
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das
There is a process for determining and defining when a target is NOT a US Person.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to spicynujac F
NSA already operates under the assumption that its networks are compromised. That said, the content of communications of US Persons may not be retained. This is very clear, and intelligence oversight requirements and procedures with respect to US Persons are hammered into people constantly. Any previous temporary situations in which communications where one or more parties were a US Person were collected without a warrant were very specific situations thought to be necessary (and legal) under the Authorization for the Use of Military Force. Our current Attorney General, for example, recently cited the AUMF as a justification for the targeted killing of American citizens outside the US who are enemy combatants. There is also ample precedent for targeting American citizens as military combatants the military protects the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic. There are a number of lawful scenarios in which the communications of US Persons may be collected, but the overwhelming majority of the mission of our foreign intelligence agencies is just that: FOREIGN intelligence.
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jarrett
Who watches the watchmen?
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stev0205
@jarrett China
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And now I repost as well: It's nice to have such a detailed statement of facts, by someone who actually works with cybersecurity, both academically, and for the US Navy. Much of what you detail, is the applicable law, and the rationale for the -limited- access which is granted by law for these forms of surveillance. This is indispensable for a cogent discussion of the issues, so it is much appreciated. However, I suspect the thing that bothers most people is more visceral, and less logical.We have entered a new era, in the ability of government to monitor and record the most minute details of our lives. The laws which have permitted this level of surveillance may have existed since 1978 or so, but the practical ability of
governments to utilize this authorization, has been limited by the daunting technical challenge of dealing with the volume of data in any such effort, up until the switch to packet telecom technology, and cellular communications, of recent years. Because of this, computing power has been able to take over a job which used to require a human's personal attention and judgement. And that is not an insignificant fact.Without being a Luddite,... show more (Edited by author 1 month ago)
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jasno
Trust them. They have top men working on it. Top... men.
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das
The discussion then is still on-point now: I don't disagree with anything you've said. However, I still think that any discussion should at least begin from a point of understanding of the situation.
I'm not making a case that the government has never abused its power, or even that the current landscape is the "right" or only course of action. However, I'd point out that surveillance of non-US Persons outside of the US has never required a warrant. If their communications traffic now happens to enter the US, why should we be enjoined from monitoring it? In fact, the Intelligence Community has always had targeting and minimization procedures, to ensure the person to whom it's listening is NOT a US Person. This is an extension of those procedures. What people need to at least appreciate is that in order to target the traffic of non-US Persons, you necessarily must look at the traffic to make that determination. There is already case law which supports such examination of traffic metadata without a warrant. If people say, "I'm still not comfortable with this, and I'd rather tie the hands of government when it comes to ANY kind of surveillance within the US... show more (Edited by author 1 month ago)
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Like 1 month ago in reply to DoctorNine 1 Like F
DoctorNine
Your argument seems to be, that living in OUR totalitarian state is preferable to living in THEIR totalitarian state. After all, if they are totalitarian, why should we hamstring our defensive capabilities by insisting on this 'freedom' thing? We should be totalitarian too! This is a false choice. Other methods, and different choices may be required, but oblique and asymmetrical strategies could be employed, which don't require the same levels of intrusion into citizens' daily lives that rival the old East German Stasi secret police.
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to das o 15 Likes oF himura_kenshin
"If people say, "I'm still not comfortable with this, and I'd rather tie the hands of government when it comes to ANY kind of surveillance within the US than risk abuse," I would ask: Do you believe our adversaries are similarly limiting their foreign intelligence efforts? What is the purpose of foreign intelligence if we saddle it with warrant requirements reserved for our own citizens, just because of the path traffic happens to take?" To be completely honest, I don't care what our "adversaries" are doing. If the United States is supposed to be a shining beacon and an example for the rest of the world, taking the worst practices of the worst nations around the globe is certainly not how we're going to accomplish this. I would rather have unrelenting attacks on our soil with hundreds of thousands of Americans dead in their homes, places of work and worship than have this type of system in place. However, something tells me it will never come to that, and it's not even the point of the system. Foreign intelligence monitoring is a bluff. This is system to monitor domestic traffic. "... the agency could have installed its tapping gear at... show more
No, foreign intelligence is not a "bluff". That's the primary and overarching purpose of our foreign intelligence agencies. The communication of targeted non-US Persons is and always has been fair game for intelligence agencies. Anyone who believes the Intelligence Community is primarily interested in domestic communications has no concept of the purpose and function of foreign intelligence. I understand that you believe the true purpose is for domestic surveillance. However, that's also not the case, and the current law is extremely clear. This the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 requires an individualized warrant for ANY monitoring of US Persons including those outside of the US, which is more strict than previous law. I also understand you believe there is no oversight from your other comment. This is also false. There are multiple levels of oversight, but oversight of intelligence is not public. I know you believe this is to "hide wrongdoing" or that oversight that isn't completely open and transparent isn't "real oversight", but that is the type of oversight that has always existed for intelligence work, which must keep its sources, methods, capabilities, and techniques secret, even in an open society. Even at the peak of the "warrantless... show more (Edited by author 1 month ago)
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himura_kenshin
While open and transparent oversight would be ideal, I'd settle for some oversight to begin with. You repeatedly throw down the argument that the NSA is bound by "law and oversight" in regards to domestic information collection. Can you please demonstrate a single occasion in which this has happened?
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das
himura_kenshin Yes: the Intelligence Community does the "right thing" with respect to the law *every* *single* *day*, and the overwhelming majority of the time, to the exclusion of nearly everything else. The regulations and law, particularly with regard to US Persons, are communicated to the workforce of the IC in respect to their work constantly. Are you expecting to see stories or "proof" which demonstrate conclusively how the myriad things the IC did today didn't violate the law? That's precisely how the people expect it to behave, and precisely what Congressional, Executive, and Judicial oversight are designed to ensure and accomplish. Is this oversight perfect? No, but nor is any system of oversight. What you do see brought to light are abuses and violations whether real or perceived or issues that are or have been in question. For EVERY action the IC undertakes, there is some overarching set of law, guidance, and regulation. For foreign intelligence, which is the primary mission of the foreign intelligence agencies like NSA, CIA, and DIA, the theme is clear: US Persons are off limits, unless there is a clear and explicit reason otherwise. That "clear and explicit reason" could be an individualized warrant yes, even a secret warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Or it could be a Presidential Directive in wartime, irrespective of whether you personally believe military action is warranted, as was the case with the AUMF justification for TSP after 9/11. Do you believe that the intelligence services are just sitting around thinking, "How can we violate the Constitution today?" or "How can we violate the rights of US
citizens without anyone finding out?" You see individual allegations of (perceived) abuse, or contextless assertions that NSA "could have" done X, but because they did Y, it therefore "proves" that they MUST be spying on Americans, and then assume that *everything* the intelligence agencies are doing must be abuse, illegal, and unconstitutional. But that's not how the intelligence service works, and even a cursory review of the history of the IC, warts and all, reveals the purpose and function of US intelligence. I know that some will naturally view as "propaganda" or "lies" any explanation of how the various agencies work and what they do that doesn't say their sole function is spying on Americans. If that's the case, you have already made your choice, and no amount of reason will change that view.
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himura_kenshin
Explain to me then why we need the NSA monitoring the activity of American citizens for any reason (FISC approved or otherwise), when that is outside their domain and rests with the FBI.
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das
himura_kenshin Simple: because it's possible for a US Person to be involved with or related to an intelligence target, for example as one party to a communication or even be an intelligence target, with a properly adjudicated warrant. Under US law, a "US Person" isn't just an American citizen; it could be an American citizen, a permanent resident alien, a US corporation, or any group or entity comprised substantially of US Persons. This was the case long before 9/11.
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Guest
No, foreign intelligence is not a "bluff". That's the primary and overarching purpose of our foreign intelligence agencies. The communication of targeted non-US Persons is and always has been fair game for intelligence agencies. Anyone who believes the Intelligence Community is primarily interested in domestic communications has no concept of the purpose and function of foreign intelligence. I understand that you believe the true purpose is for domestic surveillance. However, that's also not the case, and the current law is extremely clear. This includes the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which requires an individualized warrant for ANY monitoring of US Persons including those outside of the US, which is more strict than previous law. I also understand you believe there is "no oversight" from your other comment. This is also false. There are multiple layers of oversight, but oversight of intelligence is not public. I know you believe this is to "hide wrongdoing", or that oversight that isn't completely open and transparent isn't "real oversight", but that is the type of oversight that has
always existed for intelligence work, which must keep its sources, methods, capabilities, and techniques secret, even in an open society. Even at the peak of... show more
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SolipsisticPsychologist
You know what I say? If Das does indeed work in cyber security and is doing that for the government, well how could anything he says not be biased? And you would have two forms of knowledge and technical know-how to keep your privacy like it should be, private. The average person you might play this devils advocate game that preaching with, well they aren't going to know and have all the skills to safeguard their data and have the comfort of knowing some government worker isn't viewing and laughing over the feminine hygiene product website she looked at, or getting her name logged on to some list because maybe she posted on a website how she doesn't like the president or some lawmaker. And since in some way you deal with cyber security and it pertains to the Navy or the government in some way then you have the knowledge about like I said to keep your private life private, but everyone else does not. So you can pick certain pieces out of what I said and illuminate how it's not practical or invalid, whatever. But what this article talks about, and what you do for a living, well... show more
Mr Magniloquent
The State decides what it does is legal; therefore, it is not only permissible, but also moral. May your chains rest lightly, and your shackles never chafe.
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Erin Madsen
Das, you write: "The real issue is the questionable legal landscape that existed from 2001 to 2007 and briefly again in 2008 after the expiration of the Protect America Act." Actually, no. The real issue is not whether actions were questionably or unquestionably legal. The issue is settled. If the consumer wants it, the system will provide it. That's how the IC is set up. Even going so far as to work with White House Counsel to creatively contort requests so that they can be considered "legal", and then be interpreted BROADLY in the execution. And when even that's not enough, as we saw from the 2008 FISA Amendment, there's always retroactive legalization. That the laws regarding collection will be rendered moot at the President's pleasure is precisely to be expected and not some far-out, unthinkable exception. The real issue, I think, is: why do the collection and analysis authorities not reside within competing organizations? Why are the FISA court judges - who only nominally sanction anything - the only speed bump? For that matter, why do we even bother with FISA court judges at all? Why not have a system of checks and balances between the gatekeepers of our... show more
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JimMNH
And one more thing Das .. these is nothing patriotic about betraying your country or it's people. If you facilitate the construction of the coming totalitarian state via measures such as this NSA program you are betraying your country and it's people.
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Luke Raynor, Doing time until the great sleep.
That's bullshit. If the NSA wants your information it will obtain it any way they see fit. Your wall of text will not stop them. Don't you read any Tom Clancy books?
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JimMNH
And here is a little illustration for you DAS. Your very comment was edited by the moderator. At this point I am fairly certain that moderator worked for Wired .. a free press agent. But with NSA having full access into the likes of AT&T and Verizon what is to prevent this same kind of access into say Conde Nast? And since Conde Nast could never tell anyone, as now is true with AT&T and Verizon, that NSA did access their system
how would anyone else in this country know .. save a wiring closet whistleblower perhaps. In fact, why stop at just changing the website directly when one can modify the content in stream/realtime without anyone knowing. "Fanciful" I'm sure you're saying. Completely preposterous. But what about the simple idea that this is what some might start to believe based on things going on around them .. other things they see daily? What sort of chilling effect does this have for those who would otherwise exercise their free speech .. and effect of this suppression of opposing ideas have? And what is to keep the NSA from pulling your posts or punishing and detaining you as a US citizen,... show more
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metalscapeinc
What bothers me most is not that I don't have a clue what you are going on and on and on and on about. I could lkely paw through it and figure it out. What bothers me most is that I sense you and the NSA like and want it that way. It's a marvelous defence strategy to throw up so much noise no one can possibly get to the bottom of what you are about. But if what you had in mind was calming peoples fears, your black hole dense intermitable "explainations" do nothing but increase suspicion by us yokels that you are up to something.
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KMatthew
reply to das: Very good post, but I believe there is a reality that extends beyond a concerted effort to clarify a complex subject matter such as this. It will always come down to disparaging vantage points; the view from the outside
looking in will always be colored differently then the view looking out from within. A thoughtful and rational discourse on this subject is almost impossible because of an irreconcilable inequality that confines the conversation. The IC is shackled by the demands of state secrecy, unable to provide adequate justification or sufficiently quell public misconceptions; doing so would undermine foreign intelligence collection efforts. So the general public will largely be in the dark on the hows and whys of the IC's methodology, and that is necessarily the way it will always be. And as with any deficiency in knowledge or understanding, humankind's imaginative disposition begins to compensate with speculation. The circumstances of the conversation are unfortunate, but I applaud your effort. I hope that for some people your post will help alleviate concerns or rectify some misconceptions. In spite of persistent suspicion, I think good PR may go along way.
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Peter Simpson, Real Computers have switches and lights.
Former NSA and CIA director General Michael Hayden summed up the situation quite succinctly: "We're pretty aggressive within the law. As a professional, I'm troubled if I'm not using the full authority allowed by law." Gee, I thought the NSA rule on eavesdropping on US persons was "do what you need to do, if we get caught, we'll worry about it then."
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BigUgly666
It does not matter how many "laws" they pass ..... if those laws "violate" or are "repugnant" to the Constitution ...... they are NOT "LAWS" and need not be obeyed. This is where "submit" of "fight" comes in. What are you willing to sacrifice in order to NOT sacrifice your freedom, liberty, integrity, and your soul.
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Tom Buffone
Are you a close Walker supporter?
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das
Holy non sequitur, Batman.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Tom Buffone 2 Likes F
NICK ECKHARDT
But your reasoned and thoughtful counterpoint doesn't poke anyone in the tinfoil hat, and will be summarily ignored by the rabid mouth breathers who will continue foaming on about Orwell unabated.
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JohnnyLA
Yes, and your nuanced and thoughtful insults to anyone who dare question (with some pretty valid and nuanced counterpoints, mind you) his argument and your blatant knee-jerk reactions really add to the discussion.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to NICK ECKHARDT 21 Likes F
Mick Ridge
I just want them to fix the rotting nuclear facility sites. Instead we have built a mountain b.s. behind a security wall.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to NICK ECKHARDT 5 Likes F
Michael Flood
Das - I am interested in elaboration on your reading of current law as it relates to this news article. Specifically, your comment stated: "The content of traffic of US Persons is NOT fair game, without a properly adjudicated warrant." That was in comparison to meta-data, which you concluded was fair game under current law. Here is my question... Clearly if meta-data is fair game under current law, then the collection and storage of such meta-data is also fair game. However, if, as you stated, the "content of traffic of US Persons is NOT fair game...", is your conclusion that the "viewing" of such content is not fair game, or that the collection and storage of such content is ALSO not fair game? It seems to me, much like the article's suggestion of collection and storage of encrypted data today, which may be decrypted tomorrow; there is also an argument at work that the collection and storage of "content of traffic of US Persons" is also being undertaken in anticipation of future legal context for the viewing of such data. I believe this is an incorrect reading of law. If the viewing of such data is illegal, I believe the... show more
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das
Michael Flood Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and all abuses, real or perceived, allegations, etc., acknowledged, the law on the handling of US Persons is clear.
Consider that metadata does not have to be stored in order to be used as a tool to discern and collect on identified foreign intelligence targets. The content of the communications of US Persons may definitely not be accessed, stored, disseminated, or otherwise used in any way the law and directives are clear. ...UNLESS there is a properly adjudicated warrant, which could originate from anything from an open court to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. This includes ALL contents of communications, whether it is in the clear, encrypted, garbage, or even empty. Communications metadata is used for targeting. Consider, too, that the job of NSA has always been to make our codes as strong as possible, while also breaking the codes of our adversaries. The need for ever more advanced decryption capabilities serves the goals of foreign intelligence. One needs only look at all the codes NSA and the ASA before it, Britain's GCHQ, and other partners have broken throughout history. Your interpretation that the collection and/or storage of communications of US Persons encrypted or not without a warrant is prohibited is correct. (Does this mean it's not possible for a government authority to ever abuse its power? Or for a presidential administration to ever make a stopgap decision that turned out to be not a good idea, or at best highly controversial? Of course not. But the law is exceedingly clear, and intelligence agencies will NEVER have open and transparent oversight, as the reason their sources, methods, capabilities, and techniques are kept secret is to keep them secret from ADVERSARIES, not ourselves. This has been the case for the entire history of our nation.) I know people who have chosen to believe the IC's sole goal is to spy on Americans in order to control them will think this post is "propaganda", but I hope it answers your question.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Michael Flood 1 Like F
jujutsuka
It really seems to come down to "ask permission now, or ask for forgiveness later." It seems that there are a lot of assumptions being made by law enforcement about what they can (and cannot) currently do under the law. Rather than clarifying the boundaries before they do something, like the warrantless wiretapping and the GPS tracking, they go ahead and do it and then suffer the blowback later. Public outcry over things like this, regardless of how informed the public is or how much they are clued in to the arguments in favor of this degree of surveillance, is still justifiable and understandable. If I make a decision at work based on an assumption that I thought was correct and subsequently make a mistake, I look bad. So I clarify beforehand. Work smarter, not harder, they say. The average person very possibly might think that the NSA et al are working harder rather than smarter, and that they're keen on asking for forgiveness, not permission.
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Guest
I want to say thank you for this post. Immediately after reading this story my blood was rushing and I wanted to started calling Senators and starting protests. Thankfully I took the time to read your post and it really explained the motivation of the intelligence community, the rules it is abiding by and how as US citizens, our international communications for the first time have explicit protections. I know now that Congressmen had real reasons for passing the laws that they did and not just pure malignancy. And, I'm upset at the journalism that lead me to that conclusion, I've come to expect bad articles from Wired in their horrible product reviews but I thought I could expect real journalism from them on issues like this and not one sided pieces of trash.
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guerojose
Can't tell if this is serious or a joke. You feel all warm and fuzzy now that someone's given you a longwinded, plausible sounding justification?
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Guest 17 Likes F
Guest
I don't feel like I really expressed my opinions on this well. I read Wired a lot, I visit the site and read all the new articles I can find at least twice a day. I do this because I honestly find it to be one of the best sites for news on the entire web, and I usually find that the journalism on the site is accurate, incisive, and trustworthy. So when I read this article, I naturally trusted it, and thought that James Bamford must of discovered, along with whistle-blowers, the federal government in the act of a massive breach of the fourth amendment. My post is a reaction to finding at there is at least a decent chance that there is a reasonable explanation for what is going on. A reaction to an article that makes ominous references to Watergate and never points out that there are other reasons why the NSA could possibly need to crack codes and intercept communications crossing US territory (i.e. to gather intelligence on foreign nationals). You're right to point out that a person shouldn't be too eager to "feel all warm and fuzzy" after reading a justification for massive, computerized intelligence gathering on a scale of
yottabytes and beyond, but isn't the opposite also true? That we shouldn't be too quick to become all... show more (Edited by author 1 month ago)
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to guerojose o 1 Like oF Geodfrey
But then you start reading the rebuttals that cite things like a newer law in reaction to the Smith vs. Maryland case that invalidate portions of it that were found illegal. Also that FISA isn't as far reaching as he is implying sinceprovisions only apply to foreign nationals and not US citizens. Also this quote... Former NSA and CIA director General Michael Hayden summed up the situation quite succinctly: "We're pretty aggressive within the law. As a professional, I'm troubled if I'm not using the full authority allowed by law."
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das
Geodfrey The ECPA does not "invalidate" Smith v. Maryland, nor can a Supreme Court ruling be found to be "illegal" per se. New law and case law can certainly be developed. There is no question these are complex issues, and Smith v. Maryland and ECPA are not the only legal constructs that allow examinations of communications metadata without a warrant. Targeting foreign national communications is but one use. I'm not sure if I'm misinterpreting your last comment, but FISA, as amended, is indeed as far-reaching as I am implying. The purpose of FISA is to allow mechanisms for foreign intelligence collection, including within the US, while protecting the rights of US Persons. With respect to US Persons, the current law is stricter than it was previously (that's not me saying that that's Dianne Feinstein).
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Geodfrey F
You should investigate more before you believe propaganda coming from das, someone who benefits directly from the government. He trusts that the government will follow the court rulings and laws everyone should know better than that.
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nuh-uh
As a professional, one would think it prudent to utilize the full authority of the law to possibly curtail the corruption and treasonous legislation that happens to keep Congress from doing the job they were sent to Washington to do. Which was to represent the people, not to aid their lobbyist buddies in sucking every cent of equity out of this country
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Like 2 weeks ago in reply to das F
Dewdle
Well, if this article and the comment below by DAS doesn't make you want to go live off the grid up in the Yukon eating moose meat , I don't know what will ... ... because America is not America any more.
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Nothing Much
You realize of course that the USA now far exceeds the level of spying, monitoring, and profiling than the KGB, or STASI ever could dream of. That American who consider themselves patriotic to American values could do this just boggles the imagination. I think we need to cut the Soviets the Nazis, North Koreans and Syrians some slack. Falling into deep paranoia is very easy when the means are made available. I can only hope that one day Americans wake up, turn this off, and receive their files like the citizens who lived for decades under the constant gaze of the STASI. Read up on the history of East Germany folks, it's our turn.
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cowtownkidd
"If You See Something, Say Something." Maybe not the Gestapo or the Stasi. Yet.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Nothing Much 3 Likes F
carigis
This whole thing started because 10 crazies got past some $5 an hour airport security guards.. instead of simply fixing the security problem at the airport...we get.. THIS... thats pretty scary. even more scary then 9/11 was.. if you ask me. They took this ball and ran with it...we went from zero to police state in 10 years. now we got warrentless wiretapping, unmanned aircraft soon to be common flying over the US after the FAA finished approving them, retroactive immunity for telecoms, authorization for the military to assasinate US citizens without trial.. even when they are not activly engaged in combat against our troops.. other us citizens that happen to be in the way just chocked up to collateral damage, the authorization for the military to engage in domestic law enforcement against US citizens who are "suspected" of being terrorist again without a trial and indefinite detention, the patriot act, camera's on cop cars then can read like 100 plates a second (and check all the registrations warrants etc), until recently warrentless gps monitoring, internet monitored domestically at the switch, fusion centers, fbi agents writing sneak and peek requests on a post it note and handing it to the assigned...
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Joe Boyum
same routine post pearl harbor. idiots running around with guns thousands of miles away from the scene of the action because there was a lack of knowledge regarding the limited capabilities of the Opfor. I saw the same nonsense on 9/11. Idiots guarding the gate of a naval air station with weapons and live ammo looking for rag heads who were hiding in some mountains in no-where is tan. The US military should be one tenth of the size...pay a wage of 100k a year. And have a basic training course for all services that lasts for three weeks then you get individual training for the next six months. Reduce the military to SOF, bombers, UAVs, Intel, and ICBMs. We can use the money saved to settle lawsuits at the ICC.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to carigis 4 Likes F
Alientravelogue
Bomb this place
Like
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2 weeks ago 8 Likes F
Thane Kerner
The USA is not ruled by a gov't body. The three branches are like holograms in a holodeck. They are there to fool you with an illusion that simulates what we call democracy. The truth is, we are ruled by elites. Big Money. Big Military. Big Media. These are the components. Our gov't is but a puppet of these powers, be it the presidency, the congress, or the supreme court. None have any real power. The branches do what they are told to do. The elites have the course of history planned for the next 50 years, maybe the next 100. They know how much a gallon of gas will cost in 2025. They know who will be doing battle in the future and who will remain peaceful. They will certainly know of your actions if they wish. This SkyNet will provide the elites with the power to know how many times you flush your commode a day if that suits them. The idea of democracy in the nuclear age, the idea that the average Joe can influence gov't policy and the direction the country goes in, is ridiculous. The average Joes will get into fights over who has the... show more
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Like 1 week ago 3 Likes F
ThoreauHD
I have a special request of our government workers since their management has been taken over by Presidentially appointed communists. Since cragislist is blocked at Federal facilities, I thought I'd post it here. I want to have sex with a emotionally repressed female nerd with 5 cats, TS/SCI full poly clearance, on a daily regimen of vitamin D pills, and a firm belief that being a sociopathic communist liberal is the best thing to help Dear Leader enslave US citizens. If you are one of those government lemmings... errr.. lovely's, please let me know. We can make self-aborting babies together. And remember, just doing your part is what put the "Arbeit" in "Arbeit Macht Frei"!
Allahu Obama. Obama be praised. May his piss be upon you.
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spicynujac
The us constitution does not distinguish "citizens" from "noncitizens" With one exception--becoming President. But otherwise, the rules of the constitution apply to the government, not it's subjects. In other words, it is not that a citizen of Kansas has a "right" to freedom of speech, it is that the US government cannot abridge the speech of *anyone*. So this whole "spying on citizens vs noncitizens" idea is totally unconstitutional, and is only done so that, say, the US government spies on Brits, the British government spies on Americans, and they both share the data, thus circumventing even the spirit of the unconstitutional law banning domestic spying.
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mule1ear
Good point about the citizen/non-citizen thing. And I hadn't considered the data sharing agreements between governments until you just brought it up. Thanks (I think)
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in reply to spicynujac 4 Likes F
Rothbardian
You are right. How do we justify U.S. citizens having the right to privacy? Because we believe it is morally right for a human to have this freedom. So the question is, why are foreigners not allowed this same right? It is like you said, to circumvent the system, but it is also because the U.S. does not consider them to be 'humans'.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to spicynujac 2 Likes F
das
No, that's not why at all. It's because information gained from intelligence is an instrument of power, and since the dawn of civilization, that information is critical to conducting foreign affairs, prosecuting wars, defending your own interests and those of your friends and allies, and limiting the power of your adversaries. This isn't something that is unique to the US, but we exist in this world. If you want to make the argument that the Constitution should apply equally to everyone on earth, you can certainly make that case; I agree the principles of the Constitution should indeed apply to all, but there are many, many others in positions of power in other nations who do not share our values and do not agree. Do we absurdly sacrifice the ends to the means by rendering ourselves unable to counter the very threats that would subvert your ideal of freedom for all?
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Rothbardian F
Rothbardian
"defending your own interests and those of your friends..." Spare me, please. My interests are rarely defended by the all powerful, all knowing state. I have no interest in fighting wars and patrolling the straits of hormuz. I have no interest in allowing the compilation of my data in secrecy. The only current threat that would subvert my freedom right now is the very intelligence agencies you are working tirelessly in these comments trying to defend. Read a little Rothbard or Mises. It will change your life.
The Constitution doesn't need to make any distinctions about citizen vs. non-citizen over two centuries of US law, however, do. The Constitution does not apply to everyone on the globe. Intelligence services can and do collect on foreign intelligence targets (non-US Persons) without warrants, legally, and have always done so. This is not going to change. Clearly you're not aware, but US intelligence agencies aren't allowed to use other nations, private companies, etc., as a workaround to spy on US citizens without just cause and a warrant. I realize you don't believe this, but you probably also believe that the government is going to do whatever it wants anyway, and that any legal restrictions are meaningless.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to spicynujac F
Bob F
There is an old saying, "knowledge is power". With the NSA swallowing up all communications one could come to the conclusion that if they know everything about everyone then they have power over everyone. Make no mistake, the ultimate goal of those in power is to have more power. I remember hearing about the Echelon network being used in an industrial espionage case to give get Boeing a contract out of the hands of Airbus. I think first on the dockette is a stop gap SSL improvement taking it from 128 to 1024 bits. Same for TOR's 3 layers. Men in power will do what they want but the people are not totally defenseless. I also think laws should attempt to be passed banning the government from decrypting communications. If quantum computers will soon bring us unbreakable encryption then what is the difference in settling the issue of encryption now? Or will the PTB attempt to ban quantum encryption for the masses...
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The people who really have something to hide will just avoid email, phones and computers. I fear that when YOU become a person of interest, because you oppose some new law, or oppose a waste plant or similar being built in your backyard, they can trawl up all sorts of stuff to discredit you. I thought that the Americans were protected from this sort of thing by your constitution?
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CommonSense033
A crime can be found for everyone. With 10,000 new laws and rules on the books every year at a minimum, most people break several laws every day unknowingly.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Akula971 13 Likes F
Apoctopus
I break a lot of them on purpose.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to CommonSense033 3 Likes F
Michael
Representative democracy is dead in this country - it doesn't matter who is the next president. They will be bought and paid for with special interest money and controlled by Dept. of Defense, big banking/big pharma etc. The ONLY way out is Direct Democracy meaning public referendum on ALL major issues - education, transportation, health care, military budgets. Stop bickering about who would be the next best choice for president. It doesn't matter. Even a strong 3rd party is not the solution. A 3rd party candidate or "independent" would also be corrupted by the big money. Take the vote back people and go public referendum. Leave only the small issues to the politicians so they can do less damage.
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Like 2 weeks ago 5 Likes F
me1900
Waste of taxpayer's money! To evade the NSA is easy. Use paper, pen and USPS. Set up meeting points, and camps. No cell phones, landline phones, computers, gps, pagers, anything that transmits a signal is needed. NSA will come up empty all the time LMAO!
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me1900
Waste of tax payer's money. All the guilty parties will do now is go old fashioned. Meet at a secret place communicated by means of standard pen and paper and good old USPS! Computers, Cell phones, whatever wont be used. Cant trace paper as easily as a code packet. Besides, a new code will be released that will take NSA 20-50 years to break!
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rottedcockmeat
What about flag words? Will I get raided by G-men for saying "I'd kill a Piata with a baseball bat to have a chance to casually eat some cake with the President of the United States. My head would explode like a stick of C4 out of sheer joy if he would just invite me to the White House to play some basketball" am i going to die now? :>s
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jimmy kraktov
You probably just got SOMEbody's curiousity rolling :~)
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Like 1 month ago in reply to rottedcockmeat 5 Likes F
Cool Mike
We the 99% need to riot and over throw the Government. The time is near. The Government does not have an inherent right to exist forever. We do have the right, to end it, if it is our choice.
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Paul in Lakeview
You neglected to mention that 99% Spring wants to establish a socialistic despotism under the rubric of democracy and in the name of justice. Further, it's just a matter of tactics and expediency that 99% Spring would preserve the forms of private property and contract, the better to cloak a thuggish little political movement which, sure enough, likes to grandstand about its alleged commitment to nonviolence. But a socialistic despotism, even when in the form of fascism, is inherently violently aggressive.
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Like 1 week ago in reply to Cool Mike 1 Like F
Daniel Ziegler
The real question to a computer scientist like me, which was only hinted at in this article, is whether the NSA has developed the *algorithms* necessary for breaking encryption schemes considered secure by the public. Raw computing power doesn't matter that much -- as the article states, a 128-bit cipher would take 10^36 trial and error attempts. Whether the supercomputer used can do 10^15 operations per second or 10^21 is irrelevant -10^36/10^21 = 10^15 seconds is still 30 million years. And most important transmission uses 256 bits or more.
Unless the NSA really does know how to cut down the computational difficulty of cracking encryption, no amount of computing power is useful.
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prime1987
I really don't have time to read every post so scanned to see if someone was going to mention the 900lb gorilla. You did, so I stopped here. I won't speak to the legality/constitutionality issue. I'm not a US citizen: I think it's your problem to sort out. You must decide what kind of society you want to live in. But the practicality of the project is - well, it's crazy, isn't it? Unless we allow for a quantum computing breakthrough, or some exceedingly unlikely new maths around primes, it is and will always be much, much easier to create encryption schemes than it is to break them. Foreign governments dont need to spend much to deploy schemes with 1024-bit encryption. And it would be easy to go higher, if sufficiently paranoid (theyve all read this article). The cost in CPU cycles to create astronomically difficult schemes is a tiny fraction of the cost of breaking them. It is a completely unbalanced arms race which cannot be won simply by building bigger, faster stuff. That might work with aircraft carriers. Its a hopeless non-starter for encryption hardware.
And lets be clear: anyone with really big secrets is going to... show more
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Daniel Ziegler 17 Likes F
prime1987
[Apologies for format mess in previous post. Bad paste. Hope this is more readable.] I really don't have time to read every post so scanned to see if someone was going to mention the 900lb gorilla. You did, so I stopped here. I won't speak to the legality/constitutionality issue. I'm not a US citizen: I think it's your problem to sort out. You must decide what kind of society you want to live in. But the practicality of the project is - well, it's crazy, isn't it? Unless we allow for a quantum computing breakthrough, or some exceedingly unlikely new maths around primes, it is and will always be much, much easier to create encryption schemes than it is to break them. Foreign governments dont need to spend much to deploy schemes with 1024-bit encryption. And it would be easy to go higher, if sufficiently paranoid (theyve all read this article). The cost in CPU cycles to create astronomically difficult schemes is a tiny fraction of the cost of breaking them. It is a completely unbalanced arms race which cannot be won simply by building bigger, faster stuff. That might work with aircraft carriers. Its a hopeless non-starter for encryption... show more
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Like 1 month ago in reply to prime1987 8 Likes F
Matt Wilsoncroft
"Unless we allow for a quantum computing breakthrough, or some exceedingly unlikely new maths around primes.." I think this is a question for Robert Boyd, Steven Chu, or Shengwang Du on the topic of speed limits of light vs information.
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to prime1987 o 3 Likes oF Tom Buffone
Ok, let's read between the math, we can debate Pi forever. Why is this really not an issue?
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to prime1987 oF Zack Ladwig
interesting read and well written, maybe you should work for wired instead, huh?
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Like 1 month ago in reply to prime1987 6 Likes F
urgelt
This was my thought upon reading the article, Daniel. The article vaguely alludes to value in accumulating large numbers of encrypted "transactions" so that patterns can be discovered within the encrypting methods used. But it's sure not clear to me that even if they do find patterns, they'll be able to break AES or any other strong public encryption. It's not like they're all using the same keys. I'm a crypto noob, myself, but I remember how difficult it was for British code breakers in World War II. They'd break into a cypher, the Nazis would change it, they'd have to start from scratch. The biggest breakthrough came from securiting cypher machines from a grounded submarine - and not because the machines revealed the method of encryption (which the cryptologists already understood) but the actual keys used in the machines. It was the exact same thing as finding the Nazi's passwords. The modern analogue is discovering your password or keyfile. Once they have that, encryption is no protection. Until they do, simple math works against them. The possible combinations are very large, far out of reach of any machine humans can build today. Compounding this truth is the fact that programs... show more
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Daniel Ziegler 6 Likes F
Lefim
Regarding encryption software, two federal appeals courts have established the rule that cryptographic software source code is speech protected by the First Amendment (the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the Bernstein case and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in the Junger case).
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Like 1 month ago in reply to urgelt 2 Likes F
urgelt
Yes, Lefim, and I hope those rulings will hold up. It's not settled law, though. Encryption might come under political assault, and conservative court-stuffing might yet strip First Amendment protection from citizens using encryption. We shall have to monitor developments.
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to Lefim o 3 Likes oF Lefim
The only way that situation comes up is if a third Court of Appeals rejects the arguments made by the Ninth and Sixth Courts and state the opposite of those decisions. Then it becomes before SCOTUS. So for now it is established law in those jurisdiction and the wording and the reasoning behind it may influence other jurisdictions. The court recognized that national security interests can outweigh the interests of protected speech, but the burden is on the government to show this.
OT, the issue whether encryption software was protected by the 1st amendment was going to be my question to the candidates during the '92 Richmond Debate. But the moderatator never got around to me.
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DoctorNine
Thank you for weighing in on this, Urgelt. You usually have a considered perspective, and that seems to be the case here as well. Regarding the mathematics, you are of course correct. Other insightful commenters have also pointed out these facts. However, the skills required to properly design and field some sort of universal encryption are not that common. The average individual/citizen would not be able to do it, even if we here on these boards might find it no challenge. This means that most such programs would be either commercial software, or open sourced. Since controlling the access to such programs would mean protecting their investment, the incentive would be for the NSA, or whomever controls the 'data slurping', to either insist upon a covert 'backdoor' in these programs, or as you point out, find sympathetic legislators to make encryption illegal. In addition, aggregating other forms of data which cannot be encrypted by the object of the attention, such as cell tower records, GPS data, town center closed circuit cameras and the like, make a concerted effort at surveillance practicable, even without the small amount of person data which we can keep private. So the concern is still there. ... show more
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Like 1 month ago in reply to urgelt
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2 Likes F
urgelt
Doc, I can't think of a way to put a back door into an open source program without it being spotted. Which is why I suggested that the pro-authoritarian crowd will eventually try to make public encryption illegal. They'll have to permit encryption to exist, though. Web commerce would collapse utterly without it. So once again, corporate persons will be granted liberties that actual persons will not, if the authoritarians follow the script I've written for them. Even if none of this comes about, even if the public moves heavily towards encrypting everything and nothing is done to impede them with criminal penalties, you're right that the data the NSA can collect about US citizens will be expansive and meaningful. And because it's all held under such strict secrecy, it's an abuse just waiting to happen. Imagine if Nixon had been able to command such a resource. And he's not the worst president we've had, not by a long shot.
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to DoctorNine o 6 Likes oF DoctorNine
Regarding the back door issue, because most programs rely on a random generator to create an encryption key, an upstream attack which compromises the key can be made
there. Also, since there are a limited number of chips which people run these os's and their resident programs on, that hardware bottleneck can be targeted too. Still, I am not interested in trying to play a spy versus spy game with the NSA. They have more time and resources than I do, and I want to get actual productive work done, instead of wasting time with encryption. I just want my constitutionally guaranteed personal privacy. So even if the mathematics are in the favor of the gazelle, I still would rather there be no digital cheetah, lying in wait, out there in the grass.
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Bin Laden was not found by SigInt, just the old fashioned HumInt. Tells us something.
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Ronin, "For I am a sinner in the hands of an angry God."
Anyone else pissed off by the knowledge that just by posting on this site, entirely reasonable arguments, you will be filtered, categorized, data-mined, intercepted, surveiled, etc.? This is not a free society and it will not stand being so for long with the lack of privacy and individual rights against a sea of data and automated search engines against the fabric of our lives.
We're lsoing the ability to start over as a society. Everything is remembered. There are no fresh starts and NO ONE is perfect. Privacy does not equal criminality. Say it again. Privacy does not equal criminality.
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cowtownkidd
Do ISPs give up identities easily these days? Is a warrant needed? I'm seriously asking.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Ronin 2 Likes F
JimMNH
Yes. No .. a warrant is not needed. It is supposed to be filed for afterward to prove probable cause. How often does that happen .. noone knows. And I do mean noone.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to cowtownkidd 2 Likes F
Bryce Craig
Bluffdale, UT? Serious? Expand the photo a little and you'll see a freeway, an Adobe site, and a Cabelas outdoor shop. Pretty secretive...until the mall goes in next door. Get real Wired.
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superdoo
My thoughts exactly. I've lived in Salt Lake County for 35 years, of which Bluffdale is a part. It isn't some isolated town; I like almost every other resident here had no idea about some massive polygamist sect that purportedly is running the place; and it is part of a metropolitan area that includes thousands a tech firms, including Adobe, eBay, IMFlash (that does most of the world's SSD's) and more. Salt Lake voted for Obama, is less than 50% mainstream Mormon (I have no idea what percentage of Fundamentalist nut jobs are here, probably about the same as any other metropolitan community) and was voted one of the most 'Gay Friendly Communities' in America.Meanwhile, everybody knows exactly where this 'secret' data center is as there are numerous reports on what its purpose is and the jobs it is bringing to the area. It is within 30 miles of 5 universities and colleges and is visible from an 8 lane freeway, although a typical viewer might be more distracted by the nearby Ikea. The area isn't being run by backwater men with beards and tinfoil hats, although the article seems to be written by one.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Bryce Craig 3 Likes F
ZeitTrash
Humorously put and dead on. I especially like how Wired services its political bent by leading off with the tale-spinning about exotic Mormon weirdos in the desert, polygamizing the daylights out of each other. ("Wait...isn't Mitt Romney one uh them? Oh. My. Gawd!") Yeah, no agenda there.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to superdoo 2 Likes F
Michael D. Kline
How can the morons let such a serious topic as this degenerate into 9/11 conspiracy theories. The NSA is a real threat to us the American people. The I have nothing to hide so I am OK with it does not wash. What is normal action and thought today may be outlawed tomorrow. What if England had this type of capability towards our founding fathers. America would not be. I am 60 yrs. old and have seen a continual erosion of our basic rights. All of this has been in the name of one cause or another, The war on drugs, War on terror, WMD, Border security. How have all of them turned out? The drugs still flow, terrorists still plot, the borders stop no one. The only result has been the continuing loss of our civil liberties.
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highlanderjuan
"Sitting in a restaurant not far from NSA headquarters, the place where he spent nearly 40 years of his life, Binney held his thumb and forefinger close together. We are, like, that far from a turnkey totalitarian state, he says." That about sums up the problem.
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Like 2 weeks ago in reply to Michael D. Kline 2 Likes F
Sir Alec Guiness Stout,
Where is Sarah Connor when you need her to knock out this facility? BTW if NSA is reading this I would like to emphasis this was a joke. I do not wish a high tech toilet plunger rammed somewhere.
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Like 5 days ago 1 Like F
Rothbardian
Thank you das, for alleviating everyone's fears of government. You have shown how the state is all holy and good. The laws you pointed out are absolutely infallible, and in no way will any organization ignore them. Live in peace serf, because the watchful eye will keep you safe and sound.
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Like 1 month ago
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9 Likes F
Tim Graham
*Clears internet history*
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Kate T.
You're going to need more bleach.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Tim Graham 16 Likes F
Joe Boyum
All I can can do is extend the old adage of John D. Rockefeller. 'If you don't want it known, don't say it on the phone' to don't use the internet, speak near a cell phone, buy anything online, visit a public place where they may be cctv, forget air travel was invented, and remember the NSA are nothing but good public servants who would never dream of gathering intelligence on american citizens. The sooner we all drink the kool aid, the sooner we will all learn to love Big Brother. Much like the existence of God during the middle ages and the power of the church to execute heretics with no private armies...just accept it.
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NICK ECKHARDT
I, for one, welcome our new Orwellian Overlords. Oh wait, there's nothing new about it. Yawn. Move along, nothing to see here
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Marcus
This is a failing State protecting what it has left in it's final breaths. The people they hire are the same people who ten years ago - would have been arrested for peeping in their neighbors windows at night and watching them fornicate. The creep society is highly embedded in social media and surveillance. I am leaning back towards a self-sufficient rugged lifestyle.
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sparkhuahua
This is a perfect story telling us all what a waste of money this agency represents. What product are they producing that has any monetary value? What are we getting that proves the value of the agency? We already have similar alphbet agencies, doing the same type of work, and they do not communicate with one another.Big sister and the DEA.and Border Control according to congressional testimony. See you in the unemployment line.
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JoanO
WE THE AMEIRCA PEOPLE DID NOT AUTHORIZE THIS. THEY ARE SPENDING OUR TAXPAYER DOLLARS WITHOUT OUR CONSENT. LET'S GET THIS SHUT DOWN B4 IT OPENS. BLAST EVERY POLITIAN IN YOUR AREA.
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Steven Gaylord
The American people have a lot to worry about since both ruling political parties are united in favor of deeper penetration into the private lives and political interests of U.S. citizens. The only recourse for the people is much intensified activism on behalf of civil liberties.
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Like 1 week ago 1 Like
jmatt55
I thought Obama was elected to restore our civil liberties and stop the government from spying on everyone. I guess not. It's almost as if it doesn't matter which party is in power.
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Dano
Lying son of a bitches. This enormous secret agency couldn't prevent a few whackjobs from doing the supposed attacks that they did? Any sane person knows, these "events" were controled, and as a result, we now have more of our once cherished personal liberties infringed upon. This was the real goal of the NSA, as well as CIA, FBI, and any other of the alphabet list agencies that are supposed to be "looking out" for us. Americans please awaken from your long-held slumber.
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John Smith
Yeah, what an EPIC fail this is going to be. Try searching through a yottabyte with todays processors. It would be like bailing out the ocean with a teacup! Take a million years! "Hey, I found an Al-kida conversation, but it's 10,000 years old, so I have no idea what Al-kida even means!" the fool says. Plus, 99.999999999999% of the data is WORTHLESS! "Hi, honey, it's me! I just wanted to tell you the meeting went well, and I should be home by 6. Do we need anything from the grocery store?" OK, losers, grocery store means a store that sells GROCERIES! You don't need to analyze the conversation for some secret meaning! Plus, you have idiots from the government doing this foolishness! Same stupid people who came up with the idea to make broke and poor people buy expensive health care insurance that they CAN'T AFFORD! As in, NO MONEY! Yeah, these morons will be sifting through data! No real-time, actionable info will be obtained. It will simply be a mega waste of money, is all. Another J Edgar Hoover gay plan to spy on everyone and everything. "Hey, we got a dog moving at a home in Florida!... show more
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roger
here is a theoretical terrorist action text message "popsicle-blue", figure that out.
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Like 2 weeks ago in reply to John Smith F
turbulator
This is a $2 Billion earmark from Orrin Hatch... in the end it will only employ about 50 people.
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Chris Cressall
Sorry to arrive late to the party, but I have a few quibbles about this article since I live in Sandy, Utah. Hello? Bluffdale Utah, where this facility is located, is hardly "Deep in the Utah desert" It's right next to I-15 and in the same valley shared by about 1.25 million people. Get on Google Earth. Also, the polygamist tie-in is a weak ploy meant to sensationalize this. When an article starts with a bunch of total BS, how much credibility do you give the rest of the article?
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dihi2
We actually need to stop discussing, and learn what we need to do about this, and everything else that is happening! What are the answers? It matters not what peoples opinions are if as we sit and give our opinions, the mice keep eating the cheese! The process keeps moving along as we sit and discuss, and give opinions, but it does nothing! What do we do to stop the things that are being done?
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Like 1 week ago
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jimatay
Just one more step in the process of turning humanity into slaves whose entire existence will be devoted to the service of their Overlords. And the sheeple will follow willingly, accepting all forms of degradation, defending the Overlords unto death.
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Like 1 week ago 1 Like F
Brian Maday
I'm a retired IT Guy. When I read about all of these "My dog's bigger than your dog" crap, I really have to laugh seriously. Where will it all end? Maybe when we have a Kazillion Big New Spy Centers like the ONE described in this article. Point is, I really don't give a $hit - "They" can know all they want about me. If they chose, they can kill me. The world has simply gone mad, with people running faster and faster in ever smaller circles - until - POOF! As Churchill said, "In the end, we'll all be dead". I might add - To what avail?
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Truth
The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826) When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826) The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground. Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826) I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. James Madison (1751 to 1836) It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad. James Madison (1751 to 1836) Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. William Pitt the Younger (1759 to 1806) Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and, under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it. Abraham Lincoln (1809 to 1865) The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf... show more
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VultureTX
"The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. John F. Kennedy (1917 to 1963) Remind me again how open and honest JFK was about his dealings with people.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Truth F
batvette
This is an outrage, but as bad as it sounds this is just the tip of the iceberg. It is my belief they also have on tap to be deployed soon after this, some form of behavioral/mind control technology which can automatically monitor individuals' activities and provide suggestive or punitive feedback to alter it. This may have been under limited tests recently. I think it's happened to me. Believe it or ignore it, but documentation is out there showing they wanted to do this and experimented with the means to do so.
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Rob Gehrke
Great reporting, accomplishing what should have been done long ago - that is, informing the public about the general capabilities of the NSA and the scope of the domestic interception program. Are we really to believe that with past abuses, such as Project Shamrock, that those making decisions have only benign intentions?
Our friend "das" seems to have been appointed comment scrutinizer and NSA lawyer, lest anyone get too cheeky. The problem with framing this as a strictly legal question is that the technical capabilities have so far outstripped the ability of the legal framework to deal with them, that enumerating the various statutes and FISA Amendments Act details almost becomes irrelevant. It is rather like using Leeuwenhoek's microscope from 1676 to analyze the structure of the atom. The fact of the matter is, even if the legal framework to prevent abuse exists, the secrecy surrounding the various projects almost guarantees that no one will know about it anyway, short of whistleblowing. Add to that the knowledge and expertise necessary to even understand the sophisticated details of said projects, which are frankly not at everybody's disposal, and you have a recipe for a multi-tiered information society, one where a cast... show more
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Mark Seydel
" The heavily fortified $2 billion center should be up and running in September 2013." TWO BILLION DOLLAR center to spy on us. Did we say, "O.K." to this spending?
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CommonSense033
If you object, you'll be labeled an extremist and subject to more scrutiny, perhaps have your facebook checked for anything threatening or indicative of personality models that might be troublemakers.
The East German Stasi had nothing compared to what we're doing.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Mark Seydel 8 Likes F
Thane Kerner
I agree with all those here who are getting suspicious. There was a time when I was younger when I minded my own business and didn't bother anybody. I worked honestly, didn't steal, and got great grades in high school and college because I love learning. Somewhere along the way, something happened. Maybe I was abducted by an alien race without my knowledge and my mind wiped and programmed with new ways of looking at the world, ways that may be dangerous to the current elites. Perhaps instead I was secretly brainwashed by a group my 'leaders' have labeled subversive and a threat. I wish I knew the truth, as today I mind my own business, and I don't bother anybody. I work honestly, don't steal, and get great grades when I take courses, which I do because I love learning. However, the government now believes I am a threat and I must be watched. Has anyone else noticed this in his life? Nothing has changed for you, yet now you are, for some reason, a person who needs to be surveilled. What the hell happened? Were you abducted by aliens? Were you brainwashed by somebody? Or did the gov't... show more
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Johann Taylor
I have a hard time believing anything in your article when you chose to start it off with very incorrect, baseless, and bigoted comments towards the Mormon faith. Is the rest of the article just as made up for the sake of sensationalizing?
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Tracey1212
google-53cd7e2d8dd89539d7b515a893627e2e WOW!!! Could anyone think of a more passive answer than the one you just posted? Its so perfectly inline with what the Puppet Masters want all of us to believe, we have to wonder who you work for. "Let them snoop on us! I have nothing to hide!!!" How perfectly submissive / conformist can a person be? So, either you're a dis-information agent, or you're just one very uninformed, spineless little jellyfish. Just my opinion.
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roger
nothing to hide?, someone who still buys their porn in paper form.
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Like 2 weeks ago in reply to Tracey1212 F
NoBodyScanners
They say there's no money for universal healthcare, Social Security, Medicare, etc, but there's unlimited money for this insanity. What an absolute disgrace.
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geepers
I'm thoroughly sickened by this. And they do it with tax payer money. What is wrong with Americans to allow this? I thought I'd be able to retire in my own country, but I'm looking for a way out. I won't be able to live this way. I've already gotten rid of my cell phone, have only 3 emails left, which I will be cutting back to one to be used only for necessary requirements. Nobody has the right to have my email and spy on me. Nobody has a right to spy on you. It is pure voyeurism and imagine what these men will be doing when it comes to your daughters, girlfriends, and wives. These filthy parasites that took control of our government, our banks, our movies, our technology, quite a bit of the internet so-far, and more, will not stop until they have formed the most authoritarian technocracy this world has ever known. Obviously, the land of the brave and free is not what most people care about anymore. I really put much of the blame for this square on the American people for going along with this. Nobody better EVER tell me I'm living in a... show more
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Like 3 weeks ago 4 Likes
etexfisherman48
You are exactly right but it is necessary for the anti-Christ kingdom to have all this information about every human on planet earth. He will be able to communicate to the whole world at the same time. We are in the end time sir so if you haven't already get your soul ready for God's fight plan that is soon to come via the rapture.
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to geepers 1 Like F
David_Merkel, David Merkel: At my blog there are two main purposes: teaching investors about better investing through risk control, and tying all of the markets into a coherent whole.
Time to increase encryption key standards to 16,784 bytes. Let the snoops (foreign and domestic) choke on that.
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nostrafarious
OMG! Those of you who think this technology will be used benignly are sorely wrong. Human nature alone demands otherwise. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The amount of power that this will give the group that controls this is almost unimaginable. Combine that with the fact that the people in charge are more often than not sociopaths and you have the state of our government. It would be laughable if it weren't so tragic that so many of
you are blind. Our country's descent into totalitarianism has been going on a long time, but this will be a major step toward that goal. It still shocks and angers me, even though it shouldn't, that you, the sheep, are such ignorant naive fools.
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rjk
So much "dick-banging" here and so little being said. The quickest way to the truth is always the shortest route to take: the Constitutional guarantees have been violated; this is against the law and is in fact TREASON. End of story. The more people argue outside of this point the more they fuel a pro or con position, which is the parsing of ONE verifiable truth into various takes on that one truth. How can there be many takes on ONE truth? There cannot be except through ignorance or choosing to ignore that truth and then defending killing the truth with the furtherance of the dialectic that promoted its death. Those who claim that absolute truths are amorphous, arguable things--the very things we have adhered to and of which are contained in the Constitution--are traitors to the concept of freedom and individualism.
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Daren_Gray, Banned by Boing Boing
Twenty-five years from now when all subversives are known, if the plutocrats could press a single button and the scum would simply vanish, would they do it? You know the answer. The world, polluted and evil one day -- a button pressed -- then, a new dawn. The rabble removed.
The twisted genius of the Holocaust was the compartmentalization. The abstraction. The distance. The gory, nauseating details of the mechanization of murder were only revealed because of the unscheduled interruption of the process. If undesirables can be removed at a single stroke without all of the mess, with a puff of heat, a brief flash of light, and they disappear in vapor, why would the pure minded hesitate? The Holocaust is mistakenly framed as madness, wanton mayhem, mob racism, and irrational violence but the true terror is that the Germans (and greater complicit network of sympathizers) had a very specific list of the disposable. That drive for eugenic purity has not diminished and was certainly not limited to the German psyche of a particular generation.
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Also, if you think Bush or Obama have *ANY* control over this at all, you are a child.
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Simon
I'd take pink slime over this any day.
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barabbas2012
Just thinking out loud here...let's look ahead for a moment..and yes, I'm serious. Technology is being developed right now to determine what a person is thinking. So let's say it gets to a point where the government can monitor thoughts from a remote location. Would it then be reasonable to expect that my thoughts are private or not? Would some of my thoughts be considered a threat to national security even though I had no intent of acting on them? Would it be considered an unreasonalbe search or seizure for the government to intercept my thoughts? We really aren't that far away from this scenario if you think about it...
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DoctorNine
"What's the frequency, Kenneth?"
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Like 1 month ago in reply to barabbas2012 1 Like F
Halfvast Conspirator
So, let me see if I understand this.... I can go work for the NSA in Utah and have 3 wives too? Would they all be covered by my gummint health insurance and get all the bennies?
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ctylem
Dude. Polygamy is illegal in Utah. A infinitesimal minority of people still choose do it, but they're all recluses.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Halfvast Conspirator F
Malcolm White
So let me get this straight. In order to see if they can collect and read my data, they have to collect and read my data. If they can't collect and read my data then what? claim they didn't collect and read my data? Joseph Heller move over, there's a new Catch-22 in town. This is the sort of conundrum Bertrand Russell would love to sink his teeth into.
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Joe Boyum
Bertrand Russell supported stalinism. He would be on the side of those 'claiming' to redistribute wealth at all costs. To be sure he would support total surveillance to that end.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Malcolm White 2 Likes F
Atom Davis, I'm just a guy. I make art. I work in historic preservation. I study science and technology. Go look at stuff I do on my website. There's free stuff.
So, the NSA is building a giant spying mecca in the middle of fucking nowhere, the new war hardened head of the CIA wants access to every device in my home as a spying purpose, and I should really consider getting that new Ipad with retinal capabilities.
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Rob Chansky
Nice writing there. Comparing the efforts of a Mormon splinter sect poring over golden tablets to the NSA poring over encrypted communications was a start worthy of envy on my part.
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DoctorNine
Agreed.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Rob Chansky 4 Likes F
Well, what do you know? A great number of these comments are just babbling on about the election and telling eachother who to vote for! And instead of actually doing something, most of you are sitting on your chair in front of a computer. If you want something done, do it! If you want a better leader, be one! Forget political parties because that divides the nation. And a nation divided is a nation easily conquered. If no one stands up for the Constitution, we may as well just turn it into confetti. If you people want privacy, then what are you waiting for? Fight for it! To get the loudmouth politicians to listen, internet comments won't work. You gotta embarass them, be so loud they can't possibly ignore you, make it obvious to the world that the government has gone to the dogs. If they try to quiet you, you know you're winning. So do something, guys. Don't sit back and complain because it's not gonna do you any good.
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highlanderjuan
It is easier to simply nullify the whole system. If the states don't do it, and it is unlikely they will, simply because the same sociopaths are running both governments, the people can do it. We outnumber the miscreants, and if we want security in how we communicate, we will develop alternative resources, although AES ain't half bad as an encryption tool.
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Like 2 weeks ago in reply to Kapu 2 Likes F
Stephen Nielsen
My next door neighbor is one of the people overseeing this project. As I talked with him (and there was much that he couldn't divulge) it became clear that this article is basically a lie with an unrelated/unnecessary Mormon slam carelessly slapped on the introduction. Much of the reason the data center is being built in Utah is that the Mormon population (the one that in actuality sends service missionaries all over the globe and has nothing to do with Big Love) has an abundance of FOREIGN language experts, and foreign communication is the reason for the data center. Since you got the facts wrong about my religion, I'm led to believe my neighbor and assume that you also got the facts wrong about the data center. The fact something is held secret doesn't make it inherently evil. Bad form James Bamford - sloppy, sloppy, sloppy.
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highlanderjuan
Well, the way to determine the truth of the matter is to have your neighbor tell the truth, but that is probably never going to happen. Sorry, but I don't trust anyone engaged in work with the federal government as it has shown itself to be completely lawless, from the top down. This article by Doug Casey: 'The Ascendance of Sociopaths in US Governance' about sums up the problem.
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Like 2 weeks ago in reply to Stephen Nielsen 2 Likes
Benjamin McMurtry
The big reason that Utah won the Data Center is the low cost of electricity, and the fact that they could build on land already owned by the government.
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Like 2 weeks ago in reply to Stephen Nielsen 2 Likes F
roger
Your neighbour is a jerk for telling you anything, even where he worked.
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Like 2 weeks ago in reply to Stephen Nielsen F
jcbrook
I say we have fun with this. Didn't everyone want to have a fort and be a member of a secret club, as a kid? Here's your chance! Form a club with the 5 people you email the most. Devise a very simple code. Change it every few months, if you want. Drop a sentence in that simple code into each email that you write to members of your club. It could be a meaningless sentence with a code word in it that indicates that that sentence is meaningless and to be disregarded, like: "Don't forget to buy me some blue powder when you're in Cairo." The code word could be "powder." Have fun with it! Add another stupid element to the NSAer's stupid job. :) :) :)
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Bob Brown
I've scored the plastique. Meet me at the warehouse at midnight.
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Like 4 weeks ago in reply to jcbrook 1 Like F
Tinker
and all of our congressmen and women stood by, as the citizens just stood by as they did it.
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I think if we had Ron Paul in office then we wouldn't have to worry about our freedoms being taken from us! Maybe if more of our friends and neighbors would get involved we would have a chance at stopping things like this from happening! Who are these people to build things that are going to spy on any of us? They were born to a mother just like all of us and now they have become rich and they think that this gives them more human rights then we all get? Why are we letting a select few... rule the whole mass of us? Imagine 10 guys on an island and you have 2 of them draw a picture of a house and then they decide the other 8 guys should build a house and gather all the food! when the house is built and the food is gathered ...... the 2 guys tell the 8 that they have to share one small room (in a house that they worked very hard to build) and they only get 1% of the food that the also worked hard to gather! Please tell me why we are letting a few people... show more
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Anthony
I like Ron Paul too and he would limit this government so much and actually enforce the constitution that is trampled on. Sucks he wont win
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Gatekeeper
@Anthony If you Google Ron Paul giving Masonic hand shakes I am sure you will find out something you would not have guessed. Yes Ron Paul is a high degree Freemason.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Anthony F
Bob Brown
So? My father and grandfather were Masons. I don't know any better men.
o Like o 4 weeks ago o in reply to Gatekeeper oF chetdude
"if we had Ron Paul in office then we wouldn't have to worry about our freedoms being taken from us" <-- ah, another flavor of Kool-Aid...
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Like 1 month ago in reply to panjok2 F
Anyone who wishes to give up liberty for a sense of security deserves neither - Benjamin Franklin. It's a brave new world and a new United States of America where the Government doesn't trust it's own citizens and has to spy on them. Kind of scary that we have lost Constitutional rights as a result of terrorists. Will we ever be able
to get our rights back? Will our children ever be able to enjoy the freedoms we once had? We are already leaving our children of the future a huge debt to pay for this spying program and many other expenses. I've always been told this could never happen in the United States, surprise! It can happen anywhere! We can't blame just one party, both the Democrats and Republicans support this as well as independents such as Sen. Leiberman who even wants an "Internet Kill Switch" installed that will allow the disabling of part or all of the Internet to the American people! It's a sad time for the United States of America!
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etexfisherman48
Go ahead and admit it the terrorist have won.
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to Dave 1 Like F
Tracey1212
Were the terrorists empowered by those who wanted justification for trashing the Constitution? Many if not most of the terrorists are dead along with their nutty little plans, but the giant forces of monster big brother government are exponentially expanding before our eyes. Who won? Certainly, We the People lost.
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to etexfisherman48
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etexfisherman48
Disqus generic email templateNo doubt about that. Just look at how so-called Christianity in America at least in some of the more recognized churches are embracing the phony Chrislam.
o Like o 3 weeks ago o in reply to Tracey1212 oF Malt Whisky
Obama this and Obama that. Where were all of you people when the Patriot Act was passed? Good god, that was the single biggest blow to American Democracy in history, yet a good portion of the comments on this forum are still stuck in the Republican vs Democrat mindset. Need I remind you that when the Bush administration passed that little piece of trickery, reps from BOTH PARTIES clambered over each other to pass it? And the public ACCEPTED it without nary a peep. This single piece of legislation is what has enabled the level of illegal surveillance that the U.S. public now enjoys. Give yourselves a good pat on the back.
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Jake Hamby
Seriously. I want to ask all these people who are so afraid of Obama sending them off to FEMA internment camps why they weren't just as afraid when George W. Bush was President had all the same powers as Obama does today? You're acting exactly like the folks on the other side of the political spectrum who were frightened to death that Bush was going to send them to the FEMA internment camps, who don't seem to be as concerned now. In reality, no-one reading this is going to get sent off to any U.S. internment camps any time soon, and hoarding ammunition and food isn't going to do anyone a bit of good against whatever they're afraid the government is going to do to them, but this is still a very interesting, and disturbing story that we should all be concerned about, if for no other reason than *potential* abuses that could happen, but more for just wasting huge sums of money trying to spy on everyone and not really collecting anything of useful value. I'm reading "Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom" by Rebecca MacKinnon right now, and she covers all sides of the... show more
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Malt Whisky F
watchdogbill
While MOST of our vintage presidents seem to have been involved in the push toward the New World Order, members of the CFR etc, at least Bush was more trustworthy, but his intentions were misguided for certain, in some areas. Obama, however, has show all the traits of a Communist/Marxist. Additonally, he is an outright racist, a prove liar and deceiver. He distorts the truth for the CFR/NWO etc agendas. He defies historical temperature patterns and logic with his Man Made Global Warming nonsense and that for the Greenie agenda who want us back in the horse drawn era. If you cannot see the vast differences between Bush and Obama...you are duped by your own media whoa are in the tank with him as well as the movie makers for the Discovery, History Channel, PBS, National Geo. etc. who all get funding "IF" they say what the goovermin wants. Give the desired results...get the gtrants for the work...get a paycheck! Sell out America for money. Bush DID NOT BUILD FEMA CAMPS to use for the specific purpose of detention and not disaster
relief. Obama has done this and is doing it right now. I see it, I know where our local FEMA detention center... show more
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to Jake Hamby F
Then the reporters turned to Hatch, who proudly described the center as a great tribute to Utah, then added, I cant tell you a lot about what theyre going to be doing, because its highly classified. That is what is wrong with this country. If something needs to be "classified," then it is probably illegal!
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spamlover
"Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it compromises and develops the germ of every other. As the parent of armies, war encourages debts and taxes, the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the executive is extended ... and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people ..." - James Madison
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tim46
If you watch the new television program Person of Interest you know we have lost all privacy and it is not to protect us from something outside, but to provide those paranoid officials on the 'inside' with enough material to keep us in line.
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Dingo
So, the way to fight this shit is for everyone in all communications (text msgs, emails, fb posts, etc. to include a random "hot pick" that will flag the communication for review. They'll have so much shit to go through, they'll give up in frustration...
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Walter Steve Freeman
THAT will work. Just include random "key words" in your signature. But I doubt they will give up. This sort of bureaucracy has near-eternal life and it thinks it must grow to survive. It's existence becomes its purpose and it will become threatening if challenged.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Dingo
Newton David
I wonder what my brother in law, Zack, who unfriended me on Facebook for being a crazy conspiracy theorist would have to say about this article. C'mon Zack you worked with the NSA remember? You arrogantly told me this wouldn't COULDN'T happen. Well?
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Bob_from_Iowa1
I'm a veteran and served this Country honorably! The NSA can kiss my ass! If Obama and his goons think they can take over this Government as was done by Hitler and his Gestapo, he is sadly mistaken. This is one "old" man who will fight you with the last drop of his blood! The Obama Administration is composed of nothing but liberal/communist/socialist/marxist sympathizers!
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neoanalog
Where have you been for the last 12 years/ What planet / solar system? Since the fake-flag attack of 9/11, the NSA,NWO, wtc. in U.S. have been dataminng & profiling like mad. Thier BEST resource; FaceBook (saved them
billions). Shut it down! If you don't "get it" by now; too late.
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John Cock
Amazing how convenient 9/11, the Iraq war, the threat of "terrorists" has allowed the USA goverment to do as they have always wanted, control, monitor and police every citizen living on the continent, to change the free country into a military camp. Coincidence....I think not.
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MarkusAndersson
Does Obama run the US? No, He's the guy signing papers and speaking on command. Like a representative for a comapany... he's not in charge. Wake up Amerikanos! That's why Ron Paul never can win!
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David Mitchell
I'm done with this site! Don't talk about mormons if your not going to provide the truth.
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jeffinoregon
"You can easily start to traverse "communities of interest" and end up as a terrorism suspect because........" @das -How about the fact that by technical definition, from the viewpoint of ANY large centralized government, ANYONE who advocates smaller government with less control in ones daily life, and especially anyone who attempts in any manner to affect such change, would be / is considered a "terrorist threat" to that government? If I had a 10 bedroom house and some group of neighbors came along and said "we think is should only be 5 bedrooms and we're going to make this change to your house", I'd sure as hell feel threatened and consider any such attempts as "terrorist" in nature. The governments definition of "terrorist" is basically ANYTHING which threatens the UNITED STATES. However what most Americans don't know which IS relevant here, is that according to US Code Title 28 3002 (15) (A) (B) (C). It is stated unequivocally that the UNITED STATES is a corporation. So I guess it's quite understandable that ANY such actions to "downsize" the corporation and lay off any of it's workers would be quite seriously offensive and threatening to said "government". (yeah, that's right... show more
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Kerry Wright
Wow! After reading comments below, one thing seems to surface most, do we as Americans trust our "security" agencies with the new abilties to check out potential threats from foreign influences. The answer is realy simple and in one word, NO. Look at the abuses already, The suspennsion of the right of Habias Corpus, the right to a Speed Trial, the right to Freedom of Unreasonable Search and Seizure, all have been abused. We have lost so many personal liberties, had them slowly whitteled away, that we dont even realise how many are gone, how many have been abused. We accept blindly because of demon cryers, that do nothing but raise the "fear level" and has nothing to do with the "terrorist level". By definding this out look you are supporting the goverments duty to make transparent it;s very intent, let alone actions, The more these intrusions are loudly definded the more we, as Americans should fear our goverment, probable more than those they are allegedly protecting us from. It may be time to quote from Thomas Jefferson, rather than Ben Franklin, I am sure you are aware of which quote I am speaking.
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Tyler_Durden_lives
Looks like "The Machine" from Person of Interest is almost here. R.I.P. America.
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Samuel Arkand
Information overflow. Somebody needs to write a virus that sends out messages containing semi-random combinations of triggering keywords. Let then mine that data away.
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ItsTheSasquatch
I'm going to start collecting pictures of red herrings and encrypting them, just to be an ass.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Samuel Arkand 6 Likes F
Samuel Arkand
Even better! Triggering keywords and encrypted meaningless attachments. Or, along the lines of what this other guy suggested, what about using something like this as one's email signature: "I'd kill a Piata with a baseball bat to have a chance to casually eat some cake with the President of the United States. My head would explode like a stick of C4 out of sheer joy if he would just invite me to the White House to play some basketball"? ;-)
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Like 1 month ago in reply to ItsTheSasquatch 6 Likes F
Toffer99
That did it, Samuel. You are now on the Watch List. Whoops! So am I now!
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to Samuel Arkand o 5 Likes oF The Doctor
The Watch List now includes everybody.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Toffer99 9 Likes F
Mark Seydel
Awesome!
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to Samuel Arkand o 3 Likes oF
alfred reflection
i don't care if they read my emails so long as i can read theirs
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erinsdad
I'm picturing the facility being operated by Sister Wives wearing Oakley wraps and the Mormon-Bumpit hairstyle. Will they all be married to Mike McConnell?
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Scott McCain
And the panopticon is complete.
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Todd
So the US' top intelligence aggregator (if not the worlds) is building the largest center in the US from which to compile this info. Whats next? Should I be shocked if the worlds largest ice cream company builds the largest ice cream scoop?
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Chris4362947
Only if they force you to eat the ice cream. I did not sign up for this stuff. The NSA never asked me if it was ok to scan trough my communications.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Todd 21 Likes F
Heurist
This article contains disinformation. I mean no disrespect to the author or Wired in saying that. Among many other topics in this article the information about standard encryption is incorrect. The standard forms of encryption have long been rendered useless. The 'devil' mixes a lot of truth with his lies. Don't let articles like this scare you away from speaking out against tyranny.
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3 Likes F
GT, Kratoclast (Google it), Stock Analyst, Ranter and Freemason
It depends on what you mean by 'standard forms of encryption'; if you mean WEP (for wi-fi routers), MD5 (for password hashing) and stuff like that - absolutely not secure in the slightest. Likewise, there is some concern that closed-source PGP implementations have backdoors (because SOME keypairs generated with the same salt on Open Source implementations of PGP, result in a different private key to those generated on closed PGP). BUT... if you use an open source, verified implementation of PGP with a sufficiently-long key (256 is plenty), it is NOT penetrable by brute-force - at least, not before the universe suffers from heat-death (or Jeebus returns from the sky and shoots fire-swords from his tongue, if you're a religio-tard). The Von Neumann-Landauer limit is not something the government can change, Heurist: there is not enough electricity on earth to brute-force a single 128-bit password in anything approaching real-time. And also there's the issue of computing power: even if every silicon atom on earth was a bit-switcher and could do a trillion bitchecks a second, it would take a bajillion gajillion years (roughly) just to switch through the keyspaceof AES256... and anybody using crypto seriously has a multi-algorithm cascade... show more
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to Heurist 2 Likes F
etexfisherman48
Sounds like you have a pretty good grasp of the technology but it is a fact the super computer in Belgium has a record of every human being on planet earth and every time a person even goes to the
doctor it is recorded so run tell that. It is unfortunate and mostly sad you are an atheist because that means you will end up in the eternal lake of fire that burns forever. I say this because of your statement referring to Jesus like you did, which tells me you have no fear of God.
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to GT F
Kyle Jenkins
Sounds like you have a pretty good grasp of... well, nothing, besides just commenting on every damn post here spouting conspiracy shit and Bible verses. Where's your proof for this computer in Belgium? What is the government going to do with your visit to the doctor for a fucking flushot? How about you prepare for this NWO instead of spending all your time posting on an internet forum telling people they will burn in hell? Really now. Get real...
o Like o 1 week ago o in reply to etexfisherman48 oF etexfisherman48
Disqus generic email templateHeavens tamergartroid and darn even I resemble that remark.
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Like 1 week ago in reply to Kyle Jenkins F
etexfisherman48
Very good point! Scare tactics is a necessary first in order to gain control over the people. One of the first goals of tyranny is to create fear in the population, fear so paralyzing that the public will accept any measure to allay it. Make the threat onerous enough and the people will relinquish everything. The government is always presenting us with a crisis, whether it is health care, terrorism, crime, environmental or whatever they dream up. We the people are left with two choices, be consumed with the crisis or let the government solve the threat of the day by limiting, constraining, or removing freedoms. Remember the old Aesop fable about the horse tormented by a boar. Exasperated, Horse asked Man for help. Certainly, said Man, I shall help you, but first you must let me saddle you up. Agreeing to the terms, Horse found his problem quickly resolved, but found too, the price extracted was weighty: Horses freedom. Of course, the moral of this story applies directly to what we see happening in America today, which is when the socialistically imposed progressive mindset takes over the result is a frightened and tormented people that is willing to horse-trade... show more
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to Heurist F
Heurist
It looks like my post before got 'swallowed' by the web site. In any case, I will restate it. Don't let this article scare you into not speaking out about the wrongs you see being done to our country. The piece is propaganda (even if a lot of it contains truth) with the intention of keeping you silent. If you remain silent, then we
are all finished. Now is the time to speak out. Life in a tyranny is worse than death. BTW don't trust the standard forms cryptography, they are not secure. And the factoring of primes is not hard for someone who knows the right mathematics.
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Kylegfitz
Great article. I think the general public should be more aware, and probably more concerned, about the steps the government takes without coming out and telling us. That being said, the beginning of the article was very offensive to me as a Mormon (member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints). I don't think the author even did a basic Google search on the religion and just wrote down what he had heard from others or seen on shows like South Park. Modern day Mormons do not practice polygamy nor do we practice or preach something called "the principle". Nor are we in any way involved with sects that practice polygamy. It's unfortunate that even such large publications like Wired stick with stereotypes about our religion. You can find out more about what Mormons really believe and practice at www.mormon.org. Some highlights are: We're a world wide church with over 14 million members. We are Christians, we believe in God the father and Jesus Christ. We send out missionaries all over the world the preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. Most missionaries are 19-23 years old and actually pay their own way to preach the gospel.
Sorry for the rant, just was disappointed to... show more
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chetdude
I hope we can find out what the "keywords and phrases" are... Then EVERYONE can use them in EVERY email, etc... And flood the bastards with crap -- let the god damn NSA CHOKE on it all...
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realnewz
The worse part about it, is that most Americans arent terrorist!
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Equestrian
All I can say I will continue to express my opinions and use my free God given right to do so. If they don't like that They can gladly come to my door and I will gladly give them a lead headache. The Government and all its parts as well as supporters can shove their laws, control, and power up theirs and each others asses.
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EnigmaNige
I'm a nobody from nowhere and all this major technology blows me away but there's still a way to get around your goverment watching us all and that is firstly what happened to letters delivered by post? I take it they still can't read them and why don't you all just stop using all the things that they track where would the powers that be, be then, up shits creek no doubt... we all need to go backwards as they go forwards it seems or am I just a fuckig idiot? Who cares, I certainly don't. Now that we all know that big brother has us by the balls I for one won't give them the satisfaction of prying into my life. And lastly, you know it was only a few short years ago when the mobile phone/internet/skype and all modern day ways of communication wasn't around and as I remember we all seemed to be in touch as much as we needed to be with absolute freedom so I say why not go back to that way of living and the powers that be can go fuck themselves wasting all that time and money on watching themselves
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Steve Tassio
It's comforting to know the man behind the curtain is so afraid of us that he needs to know how long since I last bought underware. Admittedly it has been a long time but I cannot recall from my experiences in Vietnam how that piece of information in Charlies hands could save them or put me at (greater)risk. Ever notice how the bad guys like to hide in holes in the ground and or in the mountains? Like Hitler, Charlie, AlQueda, Taliban, government, the puzzle palace etc
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Tom
Seems pointless <encrypted>1lfO2bgwguilmkY8ybmO4lPs32C+XBYaIsBbbgmLyig+bzwBiBLdrMfsk11DCMCTKgElTO8COdoANQ+A Dy3vrAlTsTQWwZH+DMcUVsrQ/sI+ABJYKOCtnqCfxVRNYzp7tl846/XhjY5ktekXTghqNzRqfmRwCGtIgWzyylHa4t ZA/S9C71SSPJOb4cZ7Ygf97E3a3RG3KbBm3kL3+Yzg4LCqnXUi4reLIuiIcd5rXKTCkiNK3v7RKlTBid4GyRh3G8xUJ aaMaPIoCKun3byoki843tksAjjxTlybKmhbsO62MTZTzZIEeBmUvls2YOaDKUEjywtrEH03rPQtwi24aw== The point is that information should only be gathered if there is a suspicion of crime. This goes way beyond that. Seems sad that the US constitution (an amazing document as is the Declaration of Independence) is being thrown out. If you don't have the consitution as a moral ground, then what do you have? No more than any other dictatorship</encrypted>
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Farpoint Relay
If you don't want the govt reading all your emails... There is a simple solution... AES-3072....
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Michael Franklin, I have a big issue with Disqus because they are basically thugs for hire against free speech. Yes, I am aware that websites are private property and that owners have the right to censor, as they choose, anything pending for publication. But this being recognized, they are not protecting their own spaces. They do not represent their own ideals or morals. Disqus works as a mercenary executioner, slaying the thoughts of millions of people at websites like Fox News and the UK's Telegraph. It's a horrible concept and one that takes the story of Big Brother government and stands it on its ear for Big Brother corporate. Free speech is a very delicate thing. We tend to treat it as an absolute but, it's not... and any retreat is a loss that will likely never be regained. Disqus needs to be defeated before we are.
This is something of a 'New & Improved' version of liberty and it is really rather unique. We have seen fascism, communism and various 'other' forms of tyranny over the centuries. And today, we even see the up and coming 'Nanny State' in Europe (the UK notably) taking shape before our eyes. But ours is the very first 'National Security State' concept and it stands on the verge of being welcomed into the process of decommissioning our constitution, article by article. It was once said that if Americans ever lost their freedoms, it wouldn't be because they were conquered from without, but because we walked away from them from within.
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Calvin J. Wiseman
So can anybody tell me where the NSA was looking during the 2008 financial crisis that struck our country? They certainly weren't focused on Wall Street banks where all the shady financial transactions took place or else maybe they would have alerted Congress (passed by 2/3 of Senate and House both Republicans and Democrats) and said, "Hey you know that Glass-Steagall act you repealed back in 1999 under the Financial Services Modernization Act that President Clinton signed into law. You might want to put that rule back into place to prevent banks from gambling with depositor's money in the CDO mortgage backed securities market." Now if the NSA is going to turn it's microscope on all the corruption in our own country then it might be a welcome thing for the short term, however, I highly doubt that will happen since Congress controls the purse strings. As for history repeating itself the crisis of 2008 was a repeat of the "Great Depression" of 1929-1936 and when it happened back then Congress passed the Glass-Steagall Act. Does anybody remember the McCarthy hearings of the 1950's? The FBI spied on lots of US Citizens including wiretapping of Martin Luther King Jr and... show more
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1 month ago 3 Likes F
dlzimbelman
If this capability ever gets in the wrong hands, it will be hell to counter it. We are at the edge now with this Administration.
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Nick Roberts
You can't seriously advocate that we shouldn't innovate because our innovations can be used for evil. Where would you be without fire?
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to dlzimbelman 1 Like F
reneemjones
How does spending scarce resources breaking everyday codes for mundane communication make anyone safe? All it does is satisfy the NSA's greed for "information."
Every penny spent spying on ordinary Americans is a LOST OPPORTUNITY TO STOP A TERRORIST. Anyone responsible for this kind of mindless spying is not a patriot, but a traitor.
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NealK
Agreed. And traitor is not too strong a word.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to reneemjones 1 Like F
1) Data target: All. Everyone on earth, every whisper, sigh, thought. All. That's their goal. 2) 1% vs. everyone else. All on the taxpayers' dime. Secure the elite in their Dubai, Zurich, Hong Kong compounds. 3) Constitution: gone. Play the game, pretend, hope. Whatever you need to do to sleep, but it's dead. 4) Rated. All humans on earth given a security/loyalty/threat score. Like credit rating.
5) Democracy = irritant. If you question, you are the enemy. If you don't question, you are still the enemy. 6) Nation/state obsolete. This has absolutely nothing to do with "The United States of America." Not about "countries." 7) All of these comments noted. Anonymity does not exist. If you are anonymous today, you won't be tomorrow. 8) Occupy/Anonymous are shams. Honeypots. Adjust accordingly.
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Del
All that fancy gear, and you, me or a terrorist could sneak a message past their faces that is impossible for them to crack, and they know it. It's all a farce. I could bury reams of information in a simple ad on Craig's List describing the lovely purple sofa I'm forced to give away (you can hardly smell the vomit anymore). No. I think giant insurance companies want to know what you say to your doctor, and the cops want to know your net worth before they fill in the fine on your speeding ticket. They think they are clever, but wait until everyone runs software on their phones and computers that constantly emits threatening sounding babble filling their listening machines with trillions of messages per second until they drown to death in their sea of information.
We could turn it into a game: see how many times you can get the NSA to come to your house in a day. We can convince rich kids to play it so they don't get hauled away. Everything is going to be deemed illegal for citizens to do by the government they are taught to fear. Welcome to Amerika.
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prime1987
Yup - as I pointed out yesterday, somewhere (it's hard to navigate this thread, isn't it?) - one of NSA's inevitable game-losers is that it cannot turn data into information fast enough to keep up with the acquisition rate. It's already happened. That's why they're frantically building such vast amounts of storage. And as you say, it is pitifully easy, once one is aware of this and decided it's a bad thing, to generate nearly infinite amounts of "spoiler" data. Stuff with a few key words salted in to ensure that their self-defeating policy of data capture means that they have no choice but to store it. And they have to store it forever, because they cannot ever employ enough people to interpret it, where "interpret" can mean either linguistically or simply for meaning, or both. A nation-state-level adversary can hose out petabyte after petabyte of "spoiler" or "decoy" data. They will tie some of these chronologically to events in the world, and even include non-critical bits of data and patterns from real messages, making it impossible to know what is decoy and what is not. It is very cheap, easy, simple: and since the decoys don't have to be... show more
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Del 1 Like F
Brian Gutierrez
you havent figured that out yet?? repug, or demo are both beholden to the bankers and military industrial complex... america is not really america... it is a ficticious dream, and a lot of people are waking up to this fact.. once they get organized, troubled times are ahead...
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Brian Gutierrez
put it this way... if there is anything you dont want the NSA (or das) knowing, dont say it over a land line, cell phone, internet, basically any electrical communication... the NSA stores EVERYTHING regardless of das and his rebutals to the contrary..
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TurtleShroom
I laugh and scoff at conspiracy mongerers that freak about things like this. Yet, I commend my grandfather, uncle, and cousin-in-law as they buy guns, store bullets, and hoarde silver coins for me, my sister, and my little first cousins.
You don't have to be a conspiricy theorist to be prepared for any threat. I don't believe America is or will be a genuine police state and I'm tired of my fellow Ron Paul fans considering him a god among men, even though I myself cast my ballot for him in the primaries. However, I certainly am paranoid enough to prepare for the impossible. If America WAS to become a police state, my grandfather and uncle's armories would hold them off, and my cousin-in-law has so many weapons that he added specific clauses in his will to deed them off equally. My grandfather has a full-fledged vault, complete with a thick, near-bulletproof door. It has silver coins and lead bullets. Forget the police state nonsense, but never forget to prepare for it. Preparing for something that shouldn't happen, only to find out that it does, is better than just laughing. I take gold as a serious investment despite thinking that... show more
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etexfisherman48
Makes sense except for the fact the more people talk about it the more attention those in high positions of authority have to take into consideration. Some of these folks involved in this in their zeal never take privacy rights into consideration but through a lot of communication might catch on and realize what they are doing is even against their own principles.
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to TurtleShroom 1 Like F
roastytoasty
What Clinton and Reno did to those people in Waco Texas and what Holder and Obama are suborning and stonewalling in Fast & Furious tells me that a certain kind of politician with manpower & ordnance under their direct authority will not scruple at ordering the death of American citizens or citizens of any other nationality. They've done it in the past & they are doing it now. What more do you need to know? Articles like this are smokescreen.
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James Williams
Of course, this facility will only be used for legitimate purposes, and not for corporate espionage or other forms of underhanded and possibly illegal activity. Uh huh. Nothing to see here.
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Track Zero
I propose: 'Giggity!byte' Re: "Global Information Grid, to handle yottabytes (1024 bytes) of data. (A yottabyte is a septillion bytesso large that no one has yet coined a term for the next higher magnitude.)"
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rbblum
Guess there will always be a benefit to snail mail, sign language and smoke signals. . . . forms of communication that even a five-star, trillion dollar security system will not readily counteract.
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tiggersean
There are scanners that can read through any form of envelope and reproduce any snail mail in digital format within split seconds.
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to rbblum F
Sam Kreimeyer
Someone help me understand, if some 'reliable' source says that the NSA made a major breakthrough in crypto years ago, then why does the FBI need a narc and a VPN honeypot to build a case against high profile members of Anonymous? Couldn't this eye of Sauron have just broken the layered cryptography of TOR-based communications? The massive data acquisition is doable, but I have serious doubts about their ability to meaningfully process any of the data. I think this is a bluff.
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David Rocheleau
Interesting that first 2 paragraphs are devoted to bashing the religion of a presidential candidate.. Soft bias at Wired
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Rothbardian
If you thought stating the facts were bashing, then there might be something wrong with the religion.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to David Rocheleau 7 Likes F
1DaveN
Interesting you found those two paragraphs to be "bashing." I just thought they were background on the area, not prejudicial at all.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to David Rocheleau 6 Likes F
cowtownkidd
That background has nothing to do with the story. When it starts the article off, you gotta wonder. Putting it near the end would have been fine if you could wade through all the verbiage. Although, who can be sure of what was in the mind of the author. My guess agrees with CommonSense033: "Author tried to go all Steinbeck, and failed."
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Like 1 month ago in reply to 1DaveN 1 Like F
ctylem
Yes, Romney's church has its roots in the early 1840s Mormon Church. But the small, splinter groups that practice polygamy today are not related to Romney's church. So, in reality, this isn't bashing any candidate's anything.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to David Rocheleau 1 Like F
Apoctopus
You can find something offensive in just about everything these days as long as you look hard enough. You found something, congrats!
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Like 1 month ago in reply to David Rocheleau 1 Like F
b00dah
Digital Fortress...
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Ad
Maybe they should use their proximity to get some intel on the abuses inside that mormon cult.
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Josue Arnold
Funny that they should locate such an important facility on such dangerous fault zone. Suggests big brother is just not all that bright.
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CommonSense033
I have no objections to them doing that. If anything happens, it'd be good riddance.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Josue Arnold 2 Likes F
Michael Van Rensburg
they are setting up a mile long net to catch a few bad fish and giving everyone else a hard time, and for what? i get its all in the name of defense, but terrorist organazations are already falling apart, and you cant really put a for-sure end to it, where there is a will, there is a way. so lets all hold hands and try to be friends instead of peeking into eachother's houses to catch a glimps of what you do with your wife in the bedroom
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nh5
"According to another top official also involved with the program, the NSA made an enormous breakthrough several years ago in its ability to cryptanalyze, or break, unfathomably complex encryption systems employed by not only governments around the world but also many average computer users in the US." - This sentence bothers me the most here. Have we harnessed alien computing technology?
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Scott McCain
More likely they have a working quantum computer. Whereas it would take centuries of brute force hacking to crack a sufficiently secured 128bit encrypted message, with quantum computing it takes seconds.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to nh5 4 Likes F
Chris4362947
Let's hope they figure out something even better so that the quantum tech can be leaked to some university to be "discovered". And then we can have it in our personal surveilance transponders... eh I mean cell phones.
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in reply to Scott McCain 7 Likes F
Constitutional Believers, A Christian committed to WAKE UP AMERICA to the threats of our Freedoms/Liberties, provide a platform from which we shall stand as patriots united as one without regard to color, creed, economic status, or party. Info@www.wakeupamerica.com/constitutionalbelievers Now We The People Will Stand Up for Our Constitution, Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence. As We Stand and Declare Our Independence with a Firm Reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, We Mutually Pledge to each other our Lives our Fortune and our Sacred Honor.
This is why we need RON PAUL to return the constitutional restrictions of the government. This is why we need a Constitutional Conservative as President; That Man is Congressman Dr. RON PAUL as President in 2012 AD!
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tommyjeanne
The way to combat this is to use the government's own tactics:Feed them plenty of disinformation.Hell,it seems to work fine for them!Overload the beast!
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Noojoke Seriously, Republicans have NO Family values and mean to kill us for their anti-American vatican gov. to take over for Belial. (Belair). Those who lie have no morals. Those who have no morals HATE GOD. Those who hate me hate the One who sent me. Case closed. 'Vengeance is mine.' saith the Lord.
Does no one know or remember Pat Robertson is FOR the NWO? He even wrote a BOOK on that subject! Think he ain't sleeping with the anti-Christ pope? Think again...
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etexfisherman48
I know I was surprised by his insistence all the churches surrender their authority to Rome several years ago and he is for legalizing dope.
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to Noojoke Seriously F
Noojoke Seriously, Republicans have NO Family values and mean to kill us for their antiAmerican vatican gov. to take over for Belial. (Belair). Those who lie have no morals. Those who have no morals HATE GOD. Those who hate me hate the One who sent me. Case closed. 'Vengeance is mine.' saith the Lord.
Yeah, but the pope says he is superior to all and he is against legalization. Guess it means his church subsidy corporations wouldn't get so much money to launder thru their church baskets if they were legal and had to pay taxes. Looks like he IS the king fish of greed. Guess Robertson admires the pope's snake-oil spirituality and learns how to 'cover-up' what would reveal his true colors. But as for Pat, yes I heard he was for legalization....means nothing to me. Money talks and bullshit walks. Words without action means nothing. Just bluster and boasting....
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to etexfisherman48
Jim Kendall
Thus it's becoming "Freedom," as long as the U.S. defines the freedom, and whose it is.
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Like 2 weeks ago 1 Like F
wombat1951
On Obama's watch yet! He's still doing renditions, too. And Club GITMO is still open. Makes you wonder......
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Steven Bartels
Are people starting to wake up now? Or are they still thinking this is just a game that will be over when they wake up? This is what happens when the government doesn't follow the supreme law of the land; The Constitution. This is what
happens when people don't have values or principles and vote for whom ever the media says too. This is what happens when you don't fight for freedom and liberty. This is what happens when you live in fear for whatever the government says. This is what happens when you don't question the government and it's actions. We can stop this from happening. We need to END THE FED! Since it give congress, more importantly the government unlimited spending power, it will keep expanding until we don't have any freedom at all. Until we can't even take a breath of fresh air without the government knowing how much our lungs at hold. Are you people finally going to wake up to reality and realize that Ron Paul is the only person that is actually talking about what the role of government is suppose to be? Our government was made to protect our freedom, liberty by having the government follow certain laws. Article 1... show more
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Bill Wilt
Here's the last sentence of James Bamford's 2006 book, The Shadow Factory: "There is now the capacity to make tyranny total in America. Only law ensures that we never fall into that abyssthe abyss from which there is no return." And this was when there was only the spyCloud at Lackland Air Force Base at San Antonio (remember the Alamo?). Here's Bamford's label for chart #2, above: 4 NSA Texas, Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio Focuses on intercepts from Latin America and, since 9/11, the Middle East and Europe. Some 2,000 workers staff the operation. The NSA recently completed a $100 million renovation on a mega-data center herea backup storage facility for the Utah Data Center.
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3 weeks ago 2 Likes F
watchdogbill
To whoever is moderating. I got your clear message. You will put up with all sorts of nonsense and vulgarity But what I state is not acceptable nor appreciated. OK, I'm out!
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Thomas R Burnsed Jr
Until you have been inside one of these huge data centers, you can't grasp the scale. 1033 Jefferson St. in ATL is pretty big. ........ They all need A/C filters delivered regularly.... Switches too.
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michael mcneill
there isn't too much more we'll take from this federal government..
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fernturn001
audit the NSA, DHS and DOJ. Is this the general dynamics contract where the mine data to look for disparaging comments about DHS and the fake war on terror? Oh...that's DHS, not NSA. The first rule of government spending- why buy one when you can two for twice the price?
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ibsteve2u, Someone who cares - to his unending regret.
Back in the day, I used to feel for the citizens of the USSR and the PRC...knowing, as I did, that not only foreign powers but their own governments (!) were actively spying upon them. I took great pride in how free we were...how many rights we had...by comparison. This role reversal...letting "conservatives" run anything is death to liberty no matter what they call themselves or what nation they're operating in. There is no effective difference between America's "conservatives" and the people that "used to" run the USSR or that more openly still run the PRC. "Conservatives" are all the same: Thralls to their voracious appetites for wealth/power (same thing).
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etexfisherman48
You were doing real good there until you blamed conservatives for this invasion of our privacy. It is the conservatives who call for less government. You have to be one of those dinosaurs of yesteryear; it is your party that demands a total socialistic country. Your party don't come close to representing what it used to be.
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to ibsteve2u F
chainsaw82
Isn't it ironic that we're borrowing enormous amounts of money from China so that we can build our own police state?
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BeauDCrab
The federal Government owns 70% of Utah. This facility is likely only the "public face" of NSA activities there. It's not like we haven't been warned. This "future" has been inevitable for some time now. Alas, most of those who understand, are easily dismissed as cranks, or worse.
I feel bad for my kids.
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David McKee
Those who are willing to sacrifice their basic liberties to assure their security deserve neither. -B. Franklin. The issue here is, do we not only have the right to encrypt our communication, but do we still have the means to do so in light of what these anti-Americans are doing? The answer is, wonderfully, yes. In fact the answer is given in the article where the NSA states that they can store any encrypted message long enough so that they can perform a brute force decryption of it when they reach so many "Google-Flops" of computing power. But they seemed to forgotten something: Most messages have a expiration date. After that date, no one cares what the message says. For example, if I send you an encrypted message to "get the money out of the secret tunnel and send them on the ship to the Cayman Islands" and they figure this out ten years later - it does not matter. The money is gone! And that leads to the simple answer to this conundrum of encrypted messaging: Always use a clear-text that essentially "decays with time" so that when the goons at the NSA do figure out your quadruple 1024... show more (Edited by author 1 month ago)
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chetdude
NSA also = Never Stops Anything... But sure pisses away a lot of dough...
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Like 1 month ago in reply to David McKee 1 Like F
Matches Malone, Filmmaker.
I always thought NSA stood for No Such Agency....
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David Gleeson-Payne
Hey Wired - April Fools' Day joke?
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Greg Burton
To all NWO "team players", 9/11 first-responders, DHS dupes, loyal G.I. Joes, FBI spies, Fusion Center fools, infiltrators, agent provocateurs, snitches, NSA SIGINT/HUMINT guys, DNI dudes, CIA assets, DIA handlers, Homeland Security TSA agent feeler-uppers, cops on the beat, FOX News idiots who still believe the 911 myth, liberal ASSange lovers, Peace activists still working within the duopoly, Zionist infiltrated Tea Party constitution wavers, door-rattlers, neighborhood tattle-tales...blog this: you are being duped! An elite group of criminals, using false-flag terror (911 inside job), are reshaping the world, your country, into a global gulag. A "wild west" contrivance run by their cabal, their corporations; using privatized armies, privatized central banking, space-based weaponry (drones,HAARP), illegal wars, control of the food and its distribution, all media, the police, the banks to enforce you into slavery and fool you into spying on us. You are not part of "the team". You are a disposable asset. You are only useful as long as you spy on us, control us for their gain. In the end, you, your children, grandchildren, etc...will suffer the same fate as those you have preyed upon. Wake up!
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Joe Hogg
In Kyllo v. United States it was ruled that the government could not use thermal imaging on somebody's house without a search warrant. To get around this, they just use hundreds of C-130's to thermally scan everyone's house, which they justify with comparison to roadblocks not needing a warrant. Somebody tell me that's not fucked up...
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IdahoMan
"The Government" has always been America's enemy. Our founders feared it. And things have become even worse since the 1940s with Socialism (FDR, Hitler, Soviets). Writers like George Orwell have made very good descriptions of this mess in books like "Animal Farm" and "1984". Our "police" have become a standing army. There really isn't any "War on Terror", but an endless expansion of a oneworld police-state creating/exaggerating/manipulating terror "crisis's" and explaining to everyone that what is needed is more of themselves around. Bah. But what else is new? The pigs and the dogs...
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Linda_Moulton_Howe
March 18, 2012 - Curious why the Threat Level meter at the top of this extraordinarily important article by James Bamford is not at the top of the red alert curve? This NSA Utah Data Center combined with the 2012 NDAA combined with the Patriot Act combined with microwave crowd control weapons now available for use inside the United States adds up to the gutting of the 1st Amendment and dismissal of the U. S. Constitution. What leverage point is left for American citizens to protest abusive, invasive government/Dept. of Defense/corporate tyranny?
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bluedawg1
The little green men have it all under control from their air-conditioned condo, deep in the heart of the Utah mountains. Have no fear. They don't want our women, only a few raw cow parts and Giorgio Tsoukalos.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Linda_Moulton_Howe F
spamlover
"...nine-tenths of the people who are daily obeying--or fighting against--Nature's laws, have no real opinion. Opinion means deduction, after weighing the matter, and deep thought upon it. They simply echo feeling, because for generations forbears have laid something down as an axiom. They do not investigate or weigh for themselves." Mark Twain
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spamlover
We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations. This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. - Dwight Eisenhower 1961
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Ted Blackwell
Just for the record, NO WHERE in the Constitution is the president granted the authority to declare martial law, which is direct control and rule by the military. I can only hope that if he does try it, there will be enough intelligent military personnel to realize he has no authority to do so and stand down. The closest thing to martial law is suspension of habeas corpus under Article One, Section 9. It must be declared by CONGRESS for a specified and limited period of time. The lack of teaching in our schools concerning the Constituition seems to be for a reason: A people ignorant of their rights under it will be much easier to govern.
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Lefim
From ex parte Milligan (71 US 2 [1866]): "If, in foreign invasion or civil war, the courts are actually closed, and it is impossible to administer criminal justice according to law, then, on the theatre of active military operations, where war really prevails, there is a necessity to furnish a substitute for the civil authority, thus overthrown, to preserve the safety of the army and society; and as no power is left but the military, it is allowed to govern by martial rule until the laws can have their free course. As necessity creates the rule, so it limits its duration; for, if this government is continued after the courts are reinstated, it is a gross usurpation of power. Martial rule can never exist where the courts are open, and in the proper and unobstructed exercise of their jurisdiction. It is also confined to the locality of actual war."
This means martial law, at the federal level, cannot exist where the civil courts are operating. But martial law can be imposed at the state level for riots and such, e.g. Watts.
If y'all want to track the complex development, it's at 40 25' 54.78" N, 111 55' 50.85" W... show more
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Ted Blackwell F
BigUgly666
To all who say that NSA cannot do what NSA "IS" doing because the "Constitution" requires 'this' or 'that' ....... just remember ..... the Usurper occupies the White House without ever having met the terms REQUIRED under the "Constitution". There is no "Rule of Law" If "our" "government" refuses to obey the "law" why do they expect WE THE PEOPLE to obey "the law"?
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Mdissident
Alll comments about spying on Americans aside, The real threat here is not NSA but rather its connection with LDS. The Prophets/leaders of the LDS Church have been crowned "King" of the earth ever since Jospeh Smith had himself crowned in April 1844 just after he announced his candidacy for President. Today Thomas Sterling Monson has that title. Readers need to view the website: www.americans-united-against-f... to get a clear picture.Senator Frank Church made this statement when his was chairman of the committee investigating NSA.
That capacity at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left; such [is] the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesnt matter. There would be no place to hide. If government ever became a tyranny, if a Dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within... show more
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ctylem
This was the dumbest thing I had ever read. I mean, really folks.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Mdissident 2 Likes F
Clifford
Good lord shut the fhuck up you paranoid idiot.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Mdissident 2 Likes F
Missa Ndrea
"Caught offguard by an escalating series of terrorist attacksthe 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 9/11some began questioning the agencys very reason for being." Seriously, a few buildings falling down, considering we have millions more where those came from, is a pretty crappy justification for this kind of potential abuse of power, not to mention invasion of privacy: "financial information, stock transactions, business deals, foreign military and diplomatic secrets, legal documents, confidential personal communicationswill be heavily encrypted." Apparently the federal government "needs" to know everything about everybody in order to protect a few buildings from falling down. whoop-de-do. We also have too many politicians and corporate drones, so frankly we can stand to lose a few million of those ALSO.
How would our sad little control freaks in Washington react if Canada felt the same "need"? And then Germany and then India and then Iran? Really, I'm surprised other countries aren't ready to bomb the fuck out of us for this. We're decoding their very private, very sensitive information as well!
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Missa Ndrea
Here's how it's going to go down. China, if you recall that big behemoth to the East, currently has a few million surplus boys who aren't going to ever have a consenting girlfriend due to their craptastic misogyny. And the best way to get rid of young antsy men is to send them off to war. With us, because we stole their state secrets and their money. And it's pretty damn fucking obvious we did it. I have NO DOUBT the US government would use any info it can get it's grubby hands on to manipulate global markets, etc. We're not exactly living in an age of honest politicians, here. So a few of our finest screws them over royally, really run their economies into the dirt, act surprised when they retaliate for our own acts of aggression, and then claim we need super-dooper-decoder spy center to keep us "safe" from what? Crazy brown people who have no legitimate reason to wish us harm? The author is right -- the existence of this program is a genuine national security issue. yikes.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Missa Ndrea 2 Likes F
Brian Gutierrez
i am getting off grid as soon as humanly possible.. i am disgusted with america (and people like das).. i suggest others do as well...
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AugustWest99
So America decides it is perfectly legal and constitutional to spy on the rest of the world and everything is a-okay. I mean seriously. Who the hell do you think you are?
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bjdeming
This is so old...only the tools are new. Stephen Crane, 1896: Once there came a man Who said: Range me all men of the world in rows. And instantly There was a terrific clamor among the people Against being ranged in rows. There was a loud quarrel, world-wide. It endured for ages;
And blood was shed By those who would not stand in rows, And by those who pined to stand in rows. Eventually, the man went to death, weeping. And those who stayed in the bloody scuffle Knew not the great simplicity. -- "V" (five) in "The Black Riders And Other Lines" What was that great simplicity? As I understand it just now, a "self-controller" kicking in as answer to the man's original demand, that is, subsequent realizations that: 1) It is impossible; 2) My own business is difficult enough, let alone ordering that of the rest of the world; 3) Those who see can be seen...do I really want "all men of the world" poking their noses into my business? Nonetheless, the fight was on. In 1896. It shows no sign of letting up in the 21st century. Was Tolkien really right about "the machine," I wonder.
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ecanderson
> However, I suspect the thing that bothers most people is more visceral, > and less logical.We have entered a new era, in the ability of government > to monitor and record the most minute details of our lives. And yet these are not infrequently the same people who feel it necessary that we know the specifics of this morning's breakfast meal and grocery list from from their Facebook postings. I'm continually astounded by the dichotomy. People leave a track a mile wide, and worry that anyone might pay attention?
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DoctorNine
Well see, it's like this. When a new acquaintance asks how many kids you have, and their ages, it's probably just polite conversation. But when the Government asks the same questions, they may be thinking about reviewing your last tax return. It's not the information per se that is the issue. It's the intent of those aggregating the data, which determines the willingness of the average citizen to freely offer it.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to ecanderson 2 Likes F
Mark Seydel
DoctorNine, you missed ecanderson's point.
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Rothbardian
ecanderson's point was that maybe it is the people's fault when they do stuff on the internet...which is an absurd accusation.
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to Mark Seydel o 2 Likes oF DoctorNine
I think I understand what he/she was saying, I was merely replying that what may appear to be a large inconsistency in behavior, is explained by how people behave socially. However, if you would care to be more precise about what you meant, that may be an interesting point to discuss...
o Like o 1 month ago o in reply to Mark Seydel oF jimmy kraktov
Law, or no law, it really doesn't matter. If you're of interest to the government, they'll "listen" to your communications. If you think the Internet or wireless cellphone communications are "private" you're as stupid as a fence post! Warrant?!....We don't need no stinking warrant! If you're using electronic communication to do something you shouldn't be doing, you're fully deserving of whatever happens to you. You should know better!
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CommonSense033
A local farmstand owner apparently had a single pot plant on their porch for personal use. Some or the other stupid friend had a picture on their Facebook with it visible. Said person (who didn't post the image) got, of course, a shouting paramilitary police raid with cops in stormtrooper armor pointing rifles, bellowing, breaking things. What country is this, again?
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Like 1 month ago in reply to jimmy kraktov 3 Likes F
Luke Raynor, Doing time until the great sleep.
So what? If you are not hiding anything you have nothing to worry about. All the tinfoil hat people could make their lives a lot easier if they: 1) Quit looking at illegal porn 2) Quit cheating on their taxes 3)Don't hire someone to kill your wife 4)Don't email known terrorist, the Russian mob or send hate mail to POTUS. 5)Dont sell or buy children, drugs, enriched uranium, KKK robes, vast amounts of fertilizer, etc
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David Wyatt
"Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power." "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." Ben Franklin 1775~ Maybe you remember the next year? 1776 ringing any "liberty bells" You are fucking delusional. I have nothing to hide other than my privacy, it will not stop them from collecting every tidbit of information about me, every comment, every text, every phone call, every movement by gps, every purchase, etc. You are a complete idiot if you honestly believe that by simply not doing anything illegal you will be exempt from being monitored. Merely disagreeing with the government is grounds for being labeled a terrorist these days. Besides all that, ANYTHING that subverts freedom or tries to negate the constitution or bill of rights IS NULL AND VOID AND WILL NOT BE UPHELD IN THE COURT OF MAN, fuck the court of law. "All the tinfoil hat people" is your way of minimizing obvious facts and pretending that the WELL INFORMED people trying to stop the insanity are somehow INSANE themselves. For your information, Saying/typing/texting/emailing any number of words on any medium, be it computer, smartphone, homephone,... show more
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Luke Raynor 12 Likes F
Steven Philpot
Wrong answer bud. It doesn't matter if we're not doing anything wrong to begin with, the government has no right to monitor us like this. It's unconstitutional. The same government that excoriates Apple and Google for invasion of privacy is now doing a lot worse.
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Tom Buffone
What if someone who was "feared" of something like that was on your friends list? Is it now ok to "observe" you?
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CommonSense033
You break at least two or three laws every day. There's so many hundreds of thousands now on the books that EVERYONE does. As to "illegal porn"? Go look at how many people have gotten shouting police raids and CPS taking their kids because they had Wal-Mart develop digital photos of their toddler in their first bath.
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Rothbardian
You seriously believe those 5 steps equal freedom? You are the problem. Pick up a book sometime, and make sure the title is 1984.
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Apoctopus
Too late...
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Luke Raynor F
sarahconnor1
ALL HAIL SKYNET
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Ryan Lewis
It's fake...just bait for anon. hahaha. All, jokes aside. It's not whether or not its "Legal".... It's that an overwhelming majority of Americans would say its unconstitutional. (I really REALLY hope that's the case)
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Chris4362947
Anything is legal as long as it is secret... It's only illegal once you get caught.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Ryan Lewis 5 Likes F
Scott McCain
IANAL and I am especially not a contitutional expert, but does the constitution guarantee individual privacy or individual freedom? There is a huge difference between the two. As long as they are just collecting the data,
and not acting on it, I don't see where my freedom is curtailed. It's only when they start using that data to target or profile individuals is when it becomes unconstitutional (or does it?). Really, as long as the Bill of Rights are adhered to, which is pretty much the only place where any kind of privacy is guaranteed, I don't see where there is a violation. Among other things, the Bill of Rights guarantees my privacy as far as who and what I worship, who stays in my home (soldiers) and whether someone can search me without prior consent. Anything else is pretty much fair game (unless you figure the 9th ammendment is an all encompassing as some people do - sort of like article 134 of the UCMJ).
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Ryan Lewis F
Jordon Bedwell
IANAL as well but, the supreme court has ruled that we have the constitutionally protected right to privacy. The supreme court as also opined that just because a right is not mentioned in the constitution does not mean that the government can violate that right as well. If there is a reasonable expectation of privacy (and there is in theory, and I say in theory because quite a few people don't practice it,) then government cannot violate that right regardless of the facts they try to make up. This is where answering your question leads to more questions. How do we even define reasonable expectation with the way some people treat their privacy right now? Do the few speak for the many?
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Scott McCain 3 Likes F
but since theyr being so secret about it, will the civilian ever really know just what happens to all their information. oh well, i guess its back to the days of exchanging floppy disks in the frat house. the rebirth of geek clubs, who needs internet if you can do it in person? lol.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Scott McCain 1 Like F
What does bringing up polygamists have to do with this article at all?
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ScottV
Secretive, cultic pioneers seem to like Utah. Maybe that's the point.
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Like 2 weeks ago in reply to Weerag 1 Like F
Ari Goldberg
I thought NSA stood for No Such Agency.
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JOSEPH BURBO
Great article, love the info. Happy to see someone is keeping track of the tracker's as best as they are able to.
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arlenejohnson
The NDAA desolves the Bill of Rights. That's treason whether you realize it or not.
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Nick Roberts
Thank Congress for insisting on those stupid provisions, even after the President threatened to veto them. I'm no fan of the current President, but HE didn't want the power the NDAA grants him, and ditto for the military. Based on the ineptness of Congress, one has to wonder whether our rights would be better preserved in a less democratic system.
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to arlenejohnson F
Gene Noel
Imagine if they'd focus their efforts on the enemy and not the citizen. Speaking of gathering information, isn't it odd that DISQUS wants me to allow access to all mine when I list this post?
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Nick Roberts
They do focus their efforts on the enemy...not the citizen. Instead of repeating mis-informed conspiracy theories, you could try READING the documents that govern the conduct of the NSA. I have to read and sign them twice a year. If I violate them, I don't get fired, I go to a federal penitentiary. Believe it or not, the same people that work for the NSA are largely the same group of people that volunteer to defend this country. We often rat eachother out if there's serious wrongdoing going on.
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Like 3 weeks ago
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in reply to Gene Noel 1 Like F
Teresa Ann Stevens
Why does every discussion have to devolve into 1 of 3 arguments: (1) liberals vs conservatives (2) atheists vs religion (3) conspiracy theorists vs Big Brother? It seems childish and pointless to me. As computers get faster and faster (more sophisticated encryption algorithms will require this) the amount of resources spent to develop them will increase. Surely, there is a mathematical equation (yet to be discovered) that will show this relationship. Where do we throw the money? That is the question. If we throw the money at technology, the faster computers will feed the insatiable desire for faster computers...the abilities and intelligences of humans will have to evolve in order to create faster and faster computers. We are driving our own evolution. It is not a question of us vs them, we are them!
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watchdogbill
Actually, my opinion, it is an "us vs. them". One side is wrong, the other side ir correct/true. Every time Liberals gain control, everything falls apart. When atheists get their illogical minority way, we all suffer. When Big Brother gets the foot in the door, we all suffer. Conspiracy theories? What makes you think it's a theory? I have been studying these matters in great detail and what poltiicans and media want us to believe is covering the eyes of Americans that always trusted a media that has lost it's "unbiased" standing by actively, unashamedly taking a side in politics (violating their FCC loiocense oath!). Historcial documents, actual quotes and facts reveal what you may consider a conspiracy. Here's one for you...everybody loves Jacques Cousteau...how many know that he stated that America should have forced abortion because we consume too much. Of course he didn't consume unrighteously...with his huge boat and full crew...he was different, he was elitist like our Democrat left we have in control right now.
Elitist, tyrants and some are even murderers, let off the hook on a mere technicality by a sympathetic lunatic judge. Conspiracy? You bet it is, and the left is now perpetrating it on... show more
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to Teresa Ann Stevens 1 Like F
There is little in the world that is as it looks. Dive deeper and I bet you'll find lots to write about. Ever think about writing a book?
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to Teresa Ann Stevens 1 Like F
etexfisherman48
All terrorist have to do to beat this system is communicate in private by voice only and not use anything such as a cell phone or computer. They can use everyday language such bread for a dirty suitcase and one courier goes to another courier and adds butter for EID and all this fancy high tech equipment is useless against such a communication system as this.
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Tom
This is a catch 22, a real merry go round. Don't these idiots know that their actions inspire terrorism, evil ? I feel so betrayed. To top it all off, its always done in utmost secrecy. I am sick of all this top secrecy, always against their own population, not for them, not helping people, but steal their money in secret, build these huge complexes, let noone in to supervise nothing. This shit is doomed & against all laws of Nature of all times. I feel like bombing that piece of hell myself, at least in my dreams i am going to curse the hell out of it, till it turns into a castle for the homeless. My mind is octillian more powerful than all their computers together. . I am calling on the ETs, EDs & God for help. We need divine intervention. Ron PAUL surely will win, i know that for certain, cause everyone is awake now & will do the right thing for once. Hollywood puts mindcontrol into TV & movies big time to ensure people vote for the presidents & candidates they want. The president in Australia was elected that way via subliminal, potent mindcontrol on... show more
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etexfisherman48
Not only that but there is a demand now that the government be able to eavesdrop on you through your television. I have read the technology is already available.
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to Tom 1 Like F
Thrundal Swanson
Just Camp David 2.0. Nothing to see, hear, or fear here folks...
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, , , !
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Lance Finn Helsten
The first couple of paragraphs make for an interesting and catching story, but paint a false image of where the NSA site is located. The first paragraph makes it sound like this is in the middle of nowhere. Nothing could be further from the truth. Within 25 miles of the site 1.5 million Utahns (53% of Utah's population) live and work. It is in the heart of Silicon Slopes with the University of Utah 23 miles to the north, Brigham Young University 22 miles to the south east, and Utah Valley University 18 miles to the south east. It is right on the county line between Salt Lake County and Utah County (the two most populated counties in the state), and three miles west of I-15 from which the construction can easily be seen.
The Salt Lake City International Airport (KSLC) is 24 miles to the North and is the Delta Airline Hub for the western United States. The main rail line from Denver to San Francisco is between I-15 and the site. And the fourth node of the internet, and the first outside of California was established at the University of Utah. The town of Bluffdale is bordered on the north... show more
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etexfisherman48
You make a good point that needed to be made and I have to admit I was surprised polygamy was still practiced until you revealed the facts. I know it is illegal in America.
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to Lance Finn Helsten F
Mike Kennedy
Jim Cameron had it right... this is the foundation of Skynet or worse. You have to understand that if this is what is known there is much much more going on in deep recesses of this project. Every comment on here or everyone that reads this article is now flagged.... including me.
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Alfred
LOL, so as our government becomes evermore cloaked in secrecy, we on the other hand are left naked and transparent. Now the Emporer who was once ridiculed as having no clothes, has instead forced his subjects to parade before him, so that he can get the last laugh. The ruling class is above the law, and YOU are under their paw. If you don't like it, there is no place on earth you can hide, you cannot hide your face, your emotions, your very soul will be sucked into a matrix; until every thought of resistance is erased...after all isn't resistance futile? LOL, I don't know whether or not I have more sympathy for those who join the system, or those who run it. Be careful what you wish for, for they eye that spies through the keyhole, will most assuredly be vexed. Goodness and decency have limits, therefore allow discretion; evil however, knows no bounds.
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etexfisherman48
More and more the deep confines of the Amazon sounds inviting.
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to Alfred 1 Like F
GT, Kratoclast (Google it), Stock Analyst, Ranter and Freemason
All very interesting - and not surprising given the innate urge-to-control that inheres in those who choose to live by political parasitism.
But here's the thing: when finished, it will be staffed by GS5s on $40k a year, who get disgruntled after a year: talented people don't last more than 2 years at CIA/NSA/DIA these days - it becomes clear within a month of finishing training that ONLY triangulators progress in the modern bureaucratic structure. So what happens when you get a jaded, pissed-off, disgruntled, formerly-idealistic 20-something who sees this thing for what it actually is (part of the machinery of a nascent tyranny)? Answer: it becomes "the Other iOS" - involuntarily Open Source. Someone plugs a USB key into a non-airgapped computer the day they leave, and leave behind a well-crafted worm. Just yesterday there was a story that made it clear that Defence networks were already so heavily-penetrated that further attempts to prevent infiltration (and exfiltration of data) were useless. Hackers have known this for 2 deades (WANK did not end when it became known to the NSA, dummies). The smart guys in this 'battle' that .gov is so fond of, do NOT work for government. And when they 'flip' they become agents of misdirection... even that weak bitch Lame-O - never a half-decent hacker to begin with - spent more of the FBI's money misdirecting them than he did actually helping them: God help the FBI if the person they think is Sabu is actually Sabu - they will spend a fortune, and wind up with a bunch of cases that fall apart... but that won't make Twitter or Wired, of course). TL:DR; NSA is building a gift to the global hackocracy. Thanks. Expect Us.
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etexfisherman48
Well if you watch the movies you see the answer to the dilemma you have presented is answered by giving the computers total and complete control so the human element won't be involved. Revelation 13:5 And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. Surely the computers of today can speak so just think of what lies ahead. Haven't you
seen how the captain of Star Trek asks the computer a question and it answers? This is not so far fetched any longer.
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to GT F
Kyle Jenkins
Stop watching movies/Star Trek and directly applying it to reality, you loon.
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Like 1 week ago in reply to etexfisherman48 F
etexfisherman48
Disqus generic email templateBut, but, but
o Like o 1 week ago o in reply to Kyle Jenkins oF michael mcneill
obama is a socialist...end of story.. kick his butt outta office in november
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anafreeka
It is sad that we have so many stupid people in this country, Michael! I hope you get better....
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Like 4 weeks ago in reply to michael mcneill 1 Like F
etexfisherman48
What you say is true but it goes much further than Obama. He is just the one the international banking community chose to lead the U.S. into the New World Order. Remember Henry Kissinger a globalist said Obama has been primed to lead the U.S. into the New World Order. So that means some entity had to do the training and that entity is by such organizations as the Bilderberger Group, Council of Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, Club of Rome and such entities as the IMF and World Bank using the various central banks as their collection agencies. Don't lose sight of the fact as the old saying goes money talks and bull walks. Baron M.A. Rothschild "Give me control over a nations currency, and I care not who makes its laws. The Federal Reserve Bank controls Americas economic policy and is not a part of the U.S. government as many suppose but a private for profit international institution. Abraham Lincoln quote: I have two great enemies, the southern army in front of me and the financial institutions, in the rear. Of the two, the one in the rear is the greatest enemy..... I see in the near future a... show more
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to michael mcneill
watchdogbill
Here's my belief on this... God helped us create this nation for His own reasons, His hand was definietly in this. Historical records bear this out regardless of what the godless erroneously claim. They read a book and think because it is in print and makes sense to them that it is true and they spread the disease among fools of their own ilk. America, as a nation, has turned it's back on God and as a result He has lifted His hand of protection from us. 9/11 was our warning, but the people soon went back to sleep in deep lethargy and utter ignorance. God also states that He gives us the government we DESERVE as a nation. We deserve Obama! We deserve the Communism that he will unleash if he is re-elected. Unless God relents for the sake of the minority of believers, this nation is going the way all others have historically through it's own MORAL (read Liberal/politically correct) decay. I fight against this but it is a flood of ignorance that has a very strong current and few of us have paddles to plow upstream with!!!
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Like 4 weeks ago in reply to michael mcneill F
Bill Wilt
Yo, Bill...If you have a couple of hours and the inclination, take a read of "A History of God," by Armstrong. And/or Thomas Paine's "The Age of Reason." They'll give you a team of oxen to hitch your paddles to, so you can continue to plow upstream. (I have no suggestions on how you'll keep the seeds from washing away, though.) And as for this "socialism" and "communism" shibboleth folks continually raise, we have been a "socialist" country since at least 1913. But the "socialists" are who we now call the 1%. Our contingent of the international coterie of "central banksters" helped fund Germany in WWI, rearming the Rhineland between I and II, and funding the Third Reich pretty much through WWII. US banksters funded the "Marxist Revolution" in 1917; US companies by the thousands did business
with Russia thereafter, through WWII. This business included development of mining, smelting, virtually any and all manufacturing you can think of--there's a 3-vol. work enumerating it all, down to sales- and shipping-receipts. Quite frankly, I think all the arguments about religion, "socialism," "capitalism," "politics--i.e., Demicans and Republicrats, human reproduction, etc., are just distractions, "wedge issues," to drive... show more
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to watchdogbill 1 Like F
etexfisherman48
Outstanding! I can see you are not in a state of denial as so many are these days. You see it for what it is and your knowledge must be shared with all others. I am quite sure you could expound generously on this excellent brief analysis so please do so for everyone's benefit.
Avoiding the truth or maintaining a mindset of denial only changes the outcome by bringing on the new inevitable of what didnt have to be. David L Lamon
o Like o 3 weeks ago o in reply to Bill Wilt oF etexfisherman48
You are right on! We mustn't forget it happened to Israel didn't it? There were God fearing people in those days yet they too went into slavery to the Egyptians and Babylon. Of course it needs to be pointed out they were spiritually prepared to handle it because they were sold out to God and his righteousness
as witnessed by the three Hebrew children who refused to bow down to the king. They even told him we don't know whether God would deliver them from the fiery furnace of not but if being burned up is what is required so be it. We know God did deliver them but the point is they were sold out to God no matter what came their way. This is an example for those that are not raptured and according to the bible there will be people that will not bow down to the anti-Christ but will be denied the ability to work and/or feed themselves because of refusing the mark of the beast and finally they will be beheaded.
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to watchdogbill F
It is time to cut up your credit cards............a simple way to help defeat the efforts of these nosey bastards.
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Carter Fly
$2 billion and we'll still have to take our shoes off at the airport.
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Samantha Newman
Time to go off grid and get back to sending mail via the postal service..... or courier......
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Or, perhaps, time to expect Congress to make the USPS go away...
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Like 4 weeks ago in reply to Samantha Newman F
Heurist
Don't let this scare you people, we have no other choice than to stand up to them... each in his or her own way. They publish this propaganda (even if a some of it is true) to scare you away from speaking out! Can you not see how the article is structured and fashioned? There are subtle details all over it. And BTW, don't trust the standard forms of encryption, they broke them already. Factoring primes is easy if you know the right math.
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The Sinick
A story like this is sort of amusing in a certain aspect. Here we have all of this 'intelligence' aggregated to - do what? 'Keep us safe'? 'Fight them there, so we don't have to fight them here'? A story like this is a textbook example of what our Founding Fathers warned us of: A Government that 'Fears' its citizenry. In essence, these sorts of 'projects' are thought up, crafted and implemented around (1) basic premise: Fear. Of what? You? Me? The 'Terrifying-Terrorist' hiding behind the hedge...?C'mon folks...There's a 'power-structure' in place. It's been in place for decades. And it's not about to secede its power at this stage in human history. Certainly not for the type of Liberty that our Founding Documents prescribed for the nation.Well, why is that you ask? It is, due in no small part, to the fact that we have become a complacent, but more importantly, Dependent populace. Dependent on Government. Benefits, handouts, tax-breaks, mortgage deductions, unemployment insurance, 'healthcare', etc., you name it...Therefore, since we - to an ever-increasing degree, are 'dependent' on Government, so then do programs like this Super-Duper 'Spy'... show more
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Like 1 month ago 1 Like F
Kylegfitz
Well put, I think the whole thing is very 1984 (the book, not the year). Something that extreme cannot happen overnight, but builds up for years until suddenly everyone has a curfew and you can't say "big brother" without someone showing up at your doorstep. I'm not saying that's what's happening here, but the parallels are certainly noteworthy.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to The Sinick F
Ty
They cant hide from the Annunaki, our Government gets off on lying to us and then taking our money and using it to spy on us and put us through wars for their agenda
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Feniantim
You think it's scary trusting NSA? Try NOT trusting them and see how scary it gets. Freedom Through Vigilance.
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chainsaw82
Put down the Kool-Aid
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Feniantim 1 Like F
chetdude
Right... NSA = Never Stops Anything... F*cking incompetent fools...pissing away our tax dollars...
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Feniantim F
John Linnemeier
The overarching goal of intelligence services should be transparency, not secrecy. Satellite pictures of nuclear and ICBM sites made the initial SALT treaties possible. The idea that intelligence agencies need to know everything about us but we don't get to know anything about them is fundamentally flawed. This transparency needs to go both ways. If the CIA, NSA, Mossad, and ISI were all totally transparent to everyone on the earth, we'd live in a far safer and more peaceful world.
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Genetyx
Complete openness sounds very noble but it has it's own problems - not the least of them being that you let your enemies know they need to put more effort into concealing things.
Although occasional and strategic openness can be beneficial (such as the SALT treaties you mention), the long-term effect of complete openness would hinder intelligence gathering, likely making the country more vulnerable.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to John Linnemeier F
ignatzthecat
I suggest you read: "In Search of Enemies" John Stockwell 1984. "John R. Stockwell is a former CIA officer who became a critic of United States government policies after serving in the Agency for thirteen years serving seven tours of duty."
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Genetyx 1 Like F
chetdude
I suggest instead of continuing the failed "War on WTF you got" that USAmerican is busy bankrupting itself "fighting"... Some effort be applied on making USAmerica worth LIVING IN... Then you wouldn't need this crap!
Like
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1 month ago in reply to Genetyx F
Peter Michalicka
1984 - Big Brother is watching us ...
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jcbrook
I say we have fun with this. Didn't everyone want to have a fort and be a member of a secret club, as a kid? Here's your chance! Form a club with the 5 people you email the most. Devise a very simple code. Change it every few months, if you want. Drop a sentence in that simple code into each email that you write to members of your club. It could be a meaningless sentence with a code word in it that indicates that that sentence is meaningless and to be disregarded, like: "Don't forget to buy me some blue powder when you're in Cairo." The code word could be "powder." Have fun with it! Add another stupid element to the NSAer's stupid job. :) :) :)
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Odyssey - Time Travel
Hard to beat encrypts sequence: Use a 512-bit, Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange with Blow-Fish Encryption using a Prime Modulus which is hundreds of digits long (207472224677348520782169), it starts to get seriously hard. Even if you had access to all the computational power on Earth, it could take thousands of years or more to find the answer.
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ncgal
Like so many of you, this worries me but nobody is going to do anything about Obama. Be right with God, this is bringing the second coming of Christ closer each day. He'll take care of it all.
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seni tassy
I read the article today's and what found it interesting that the people in Bluffdale, UT have mulitple wives. The U.S. government is constructing this facility at higher cost during tough economic times.Mass surveillance is a major concern which violates the US Constitution and we are losing privacy.
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Diane Donofrio
This personally is a invasion of privacy, especially coming from the 1970's generation, where we felt that government for the most part should stay out of our private lives. The problem with today is the technology has really perhaps been exciting, but we are in the long one are paying for the price by given away our privacy. It is a really sad situation, even if we all collectively got together to say that this is illegal. I feel that the average citizen in this country will not be able to tell if are privacy is being invaded, even by using our own home computer. The technology is truly gotten too advance. I know that most of all in my generation could have a way of finding out if our, wired to the wall phones, were being tapped. You could possibly get a court order to find out, why you are being tapped. Today, as an example for national security of our nation, we will be told that this Utah Data Center has to exist to secure us from arms way. Since when did we give up our rights, and surrendered to a form of Government Communism of needing to know what... show more
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Penelope Segel
Well now I know where I'm going when the zombies attack.
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lode
This is the idea of a Communist like society based on Capitalism. The NWO. Or rather the World Police State. Ultimately policing the whole world population, or as much of it as possible. Yet it gravely underestimates human intelligence -and I don't mean data gathering- which sooner or later will always find a way to overthrow any system of dictatorial control. The subconscious knowledge that this is so causes those in temporary power to feel severely paranoid and distrusting of anyone not part of their particular club. This is obvious in all past and present power "elites", regardless of their applied political system. You can monitor all you want, but something unexpected always happens which turns the tables. New generations will have different ideas. Something in them -call it conscience- will somehow make sure that those who abuse their power for their selfish ends at the cost of the interests of rest -the majority- will lose it. So far it has always happened. And it will happen even more and on a global scale the more abuse is being experienced. "The meek shall inherit the earth" is a promise and prophesy based on a power that is invisible on the... show more
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Martin Rosenkranz
skynet is comming
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Martin Rosenkranz
skynet is comming....
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hells86
"Everyone's a target" How apt of the paranoia theather. I like how they skip the pretenses
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Faye Kane Homeless Brain, Wretched cerebral mutant, damned by god and doomed by man to understand everything and control NOTHING.
Can you imagine what Sarah Palin and the gang of 'thuglicans will do when they take over and they have this power?
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Joe
So i guess the question would be: how many yottaflops does it take to crack AES256? Anyone? Or would the more relevant question be: how many Jaguars does it take to screw the Constitution?
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bluedawg1
The U.S. deserves the best in electronic surveillance. I am so proud. I'll sleep better knowing my family is safer tonight.
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PHILIP
9/11 and the hyped terrorism since are false flag attacks, inside jobs to justify war, maintaining the heroin supply, and taking away your rights. This "temporary" situation, is the permenant state over the next decade, while they establish world government, and wipe us out, their goal is 95% population reduction. Democracy is 2 wolves and a sheep voting over whats for lunch.
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=== === This is what happens. You get something truly horriffic and of great concern, like 9/11 or this 1984-like spy system, and then crazy stupid people decide that's not bad enough and add "no airplane actually hit the pentagon" and "the government wants to kill 95% of us". No, crazy stupid person, a plane DID hit the pentagon, and the government isn't mass-murdering 95% of americans. You trivialize the fact that they're going to know everything we say and do, for 100% of americans. -- faye kane homeless brain
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Like 1 month ago in reply to PHILIP 1 Like F
Roobah
My friend who lives in Bluffdale now and for years... says the entire city population of Bluffdale isn't 9,000. Wikipedia puts the 2000 census population at 4,700. So these fantastical accusations of a Salt Lake City suburb being the heart massive polygamy as every day life, is just plain false. SO, to put that as the FIRST summarizing paragraph of an entire article just begs to ask just how honest the rest of this article is.
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patriot120
They hate us for our freedoms
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Richard R
George Orwell was spot on. He was a tad off on timing though. Big Brother is here. Now all you Subjects pay attention
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Truth
Not very secret if there's a six page article on Wired ......
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Mark Newell
Sorry for the double post. New guy syndrome. Is there a way to delete one of them , or do I need to file a request with the NSA?
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Mark Newell
Not very long ago..... I actually believed that I would be willing to sacrifice a bit of freedom for security. I believed that a guard or cop at the entrance to my community, checking I.D. would be better than car loads of gang members roaming through creating havoc. I once laughed at those who mistrusted the government and prepared for survival, should things go dsideways. I supported efforts by our so called "leaders" to monitor society, in search for the ever present evil. Not long ago..... I slept. I just finished building my fourth M-4. I just finished loading my 3rd case of 5.56. Today my Saiga 12 arrives. My wife has canned enough food to feed a city. I have taken great steps at a great cost to ensure that I am fully self reliant under any circumstance. I am awake. Anyone who really believes that the simple act of discussing this on the internet, has not steered electronic ears in your direction.... is sound asleep and I understand that. Someone eluded to it and I repeat this truth. In 1935 Germany... many citizens felt uneasy and sensed that doom was on the way. More laughed such talk off... show more
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Simon L'nu
evil will continue to flourish unless it is stopped. people need to wake up and stop electing people that talk with forked tongues and evil thoughts. stop watching justin bieber and csi and wake up before you end up in a concentration camp. at this point i doubt they'll round up people, giving people a false sense of freedom and liberty.
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. --ben franklin
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Matthew L Kees
The results of all this government "spying" is so people like DAS can spy on other people like DAS. Spy vs. Spy.
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Brian Gutierrez
das is for spying on everybody, everywhere.. that much is already clear...
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Curiousity_Reads
thyme 2 muv >>>_ \/ gr0wnd
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Onoku
I love how "senior intelligence officials" are always giving anonymous information to reporters. Shows how well our vetting process works for security clearances, eh?
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Eric Anderson
Yes, Editors are sorely needed at Wired and elsewhere. Used to be Editors held writers to a standard, now they just let writers write how they want -- for themselves and their friends -- not for the reading public, those schmucks. I'll leave it to you to figure out who the schmucks are. Maybe the NSA can tell us.
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zen
Definitely a sophomoric beginning with the attempt to compare to Mormons. Not well thought out there. I see that progressive writers, when they have a story that implicates their own people, say, like their beloved president, need to do a little handwashing at the first, maybe blame some conservatives first to show credentials. Anyone else notice that?
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Eric Anderson F
Dave Brueck
Interesting read once you can make it past the first few paragraphs. What on earth? By highlighting some tiny religious sect (the Wasatch Front is home to ~2m people), the article makes it sound like that group is somehow normal or representative of the area. Neither is true. Oh well, I guess a little sensationalism garners more reads.
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JimMNH
Nice comment fool. It has nothing to do with what you are doing if you can be accused of doing anything because they "know" everything.
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1 month ago 1 Like F
dandharris, http://www.linkedin.com/in/dandharris
removed.
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cowtownkidd
Jeez! Get to the point! Is there an editor in the house? After four paragraphs, I know nothing about the topic. After eight paragraphs, I have nothing to hang my hat on. The topic is something I want to know about but I don't have time for novelized journalism. "The spring air in the small, sand-dusted town has a soft haze to it, and clumps of green-gray sagebrush rustle in the breeze." CRIMINY!
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CommonSense033
Author tried to go all Steinbeck, and failed.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to cowtownkidd 2 Likes F
aggielawyer
Tell you what- let's shut down every national intelligence agency, CIA, NSA, DIA, NRO, let's even throw in the FBI for good measure- just get rid of all the "intrusive" federal agencies. That way, the next time terrorists target, and actually carry out an attack on U.S. soil, there's none of the "they should have seen it coming..." arguments to be made. We'll all live very private, very short lives.
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Akula971
Ask yourself why they would want to blow you up? Could it be that the Americans are busy blowing up other countries in their quest for total control of other nations resources? End your dependancy upon Middle east oil, and America can completely disengage with the oil producing countries. Ah but there is Israel to look after. Worth the price? I do think it is funny how the Chinese can get all the resources they want without having to invade?
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Preston Maness
And if the target decides to encrypt all of his transmissions, what then? No matter how many nodes you throw into the cluster, you're never going to get near to the time that would be needed to crack the encryption.
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if terrorist were going to send eachother messages they would probly use cryptic language anyway, codewords, numerical reference code, etc, so encryption isnt even the real problem.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Preston Maness 2 Likes F
ctylem
Okay. So, as has been mentioned, this thing is being built in a semi-suburban town between Salt Lake City and Provo. Right in the middle of an urban area of 2.2 million people. Not really the middle of a desert now, is it. Bluffdale is definitely not as polygamous as this article makes it sound, either. Because maybe half a percent of the population of Salt Lake City practices polygamy. In secret. Because they're weird people. So, hmm. (I'm not discounting the presence of a polygamous community in Bluffdale. There is one. But they're not really prominent or public by any stretch.)
Right now, an outlet mall, a commuter rail line, a freeway, and an Adobe building are being built within stone's throw of this data center.
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Ted Marz
Go take a look at EO 12333 - They take it very, very seriously. Plus, they may be using cleared construction workers not because they want the facility kept secret, but they want it kept secure.
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Reality
lol what if all that is a "cover" for some other use? Might need to store massive amounts of data for other reasons than "spying"
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Chris4362947
They are bulding a huge data center bunker to store all of humanitys collective porn images and movies. It is for the survivors (if any) of the coming apocalypse, alien invasion or epidemic (chose whichever you fancy).
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Reality 1 Like F
Redripper1
They are "this far" from being in a shooting war against 250 million Americans where they will be outnumbered 10,000 to 1. These Slave Enforcers are in for a shock when they realize the military is not going to do their bidding. I believe the military will MUTINY against them.
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Like 6 days ago F
Craig Rosenberg
Who are we at war with?
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Like 1 week ago F
Doug
Isn't if kind of funny. They mention a force that we can not see? Seems like Fascism? Hitler did the same. Then when people questioned authority? They were labeled a,"Domestic Terrorist"? Look at the Security Paper of Hitlers party and put it next to the NDAA Act! Looks Eeri semilar.
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Like 1 week ago F
keccyr
it surely sacred me , its legal but absolutely immoral, like someone say to me "we are gleaning your little secret everyday ,but guess what? olive with that yourself!"
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Like 1 week ago F
keccyr
it made me scared, though its legal but absolutely immoral. they are telling us "we are gleaning your private every hour , and live with that "
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Like 1 week ago F
Paul in Lakeview
"And, of course, its all being done in secret." Does "it's", in this case, mean 'it is' or 'it was'?
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Like 1 week ago F
fred c
This reads like a great novel. Can you imagine the movies this contains? I wonder if the money for all this innovation, construction and security is a known part of any budget or is simply hidden away in the corners of a trillion or so not-accounted-for dollars? Actually, one might wonder what is really going on when/if we are allowed to know about this? Great fodder for fiction which is hiding truth?
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Like 1 week ago F
realnewz
Google "Black Budget" for more info on how these covert ops are funded.
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Like 1 week ago in reply to fred c F
Bill Wesley
Ron Paul is an American Hitler, so of course he is seen as a savior as was Hitler, He will turn all power over to the 1%, all power over to the corporations. The intelligentsia also supported Hitler because no one else had enough "integrity" to counter the status quo, while Hitler did have that ability, he revitalized the German economy, then he destroyed the German people Jew and none Jew alike. It is not enough to have integrity, head hunters have integrity, the wrong kind of integrity. The government has abandon its primary role of protecting the common interest against special interest and Ron Paul would have MORE of the same, not less.The NSA is working AGAINST the majority to protect the interests of the wealthiest 1% who see to it they are well funded. This is exactly the same kind of operation as the inquisition which was also an intelligence gathering enterprise intent on rooting out enemies of the state, the holocaust was the last in a series of such inquisitions extending back thousands of years with Jews a frequent choice of victim in all of them, but not the only choice of victim. All such "intelligence" gathering... show more
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Like 1 week ago F
looknclick
If you happen to walk by the bank, which is being robbed by guys who turned off their phones, with your iPhone, you will become the main suspect, and if you don't have enough money for a good lawyer (oxymoron), you may end up in jail, where you will undergo a strip search for starters. How this sounds for paying taxes and allowing this "security measure" to happen?
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Like 1 week ago F
looknclick
If you happen to walk by the bank, which is being robbed by guys who turned off their phones, with your iPhone, you will become the main suspect, and if you don't have enough money for a good lawyer (oxymoron), you may end up in
jail, where you will undergo a strip search for starters. How this sounds for paying taxes and allowing this "security measure" to happen?
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Like 1 week ago F
David Tolman
What's up with the LDS flame-baiting? What agenda does Mr. Bamford have against good Utah folk? The LDS church hasn't practiced polygamy for over 150 years. Any polygamy occurring in Utah (or anywhere else for that matter) is definitely NOT sanctioned by the Mormon church. It seems that this article is trying to actually make two points: excite the readership over the NSA's latest constitutional breach as well as indirectly besmirch the LDS church. Of course he limits his second objective to only a few paragraphs, but their prominence at the beginning of the article adds a level of transparency to his intent. Mr. Bamford probably has little to no interest in learning about the real nature of the LDS church, which is regrettable, but also expected. However, he shouldn't be so surprised or offended when he receives treatment in kind from equally closed-minded individuals on issues or beliefs in his Weltanschauung.
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Like 1 week ago F
Ez Powell
i would like to work on those databases. talk about BIG. Fun. but in truth i'd rather be a musician - if that's possible :)
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Like 2 weeks ago F
boogyoogyoogy
Time after time, I have witnessed articles on Wired about the necessity, the desirability, of the powers that be, to be able to implement new gun controls to protect us, from us. The constitution and bill of rights be damned. Not even a consideration was given as to the potentials of that position, with respect to an overbearing, even tyrannical government. That was only the tip of the proverbial ice berg, only a small part of what worries all libertarian and liberty minded people. And now we find our worst fears for our people and our children realized. It isn't just Obama or the Bushes. Do you now understand what we were talking about? I swallowed that red pill long ago and it looks like you are doing so now. The difference is that they are going to shove the blue one down your throat whether you like it or not. We need to tell the truth, instead of a talking point and look just a little further than their lips, for it.
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Like 2 weeks ago F
nadine99
You have to be crazy to believe that the NSA would announce to the world that they had made a cryptoanalytic breakthrough of any kind. Something smells fishy here, I haven't figured it out yet, but I will.
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Like 2 weeks ago F
facebook-1276854478
Time Magazine, August 4, 1997, has an article titled "Kingdom Come" by David Van Biema (in fact, the entire magazine issue is about the Mormon Church, titled 'Mormons, Inc.: The secrets of America's most prosperous religion'). On page 52 I read, "The FBI and CIA, drawn by a seemingly incorruptible rectitude, have instituted Mormonrecruiting plans." Apparently the NSA has a Mormon 'hiring preference' too ! I guess Deep Throat (former Sen. Robert F. Bennett) had something to do with this, but I digress. No offense to the seemingly incorruptible Mormons but if you get into the CIA you can bet some of your covert ops (domestic and foreign) are going to be 'dirty work'. Which begs the question re Mitt Romney's candidacy. Will Mitt keep that hiring preference ? What is the current status of this preference and how long has it been in effect ? I understand Bush/Cheney and Republicans in general are at something like 90% favorable ratings in polls taken in this reddest of red states.
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Like 2 weeks ago F
Joe Barclay
This building site has been around for fifty years and was originally only a few buildings and was a support CIA strike unit to head off any sightings of top secret aircraft tests and UFO sightings. They were the first to come up with the idea that UFOs may just be true in propaganda releases to divert from military air and ground to space craft research. It has taken 50 years to accumulate this expansions to the facility for the purpose of not only training but dispatching agents to the field to control the population during these days of horrid change under an apparent dictatorial want-abe who can't even govern his own cabinet.
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2 weeks ago F
Shannon
In all seriousness, I think it's time for Americans to pick up arms and start demanding freedom from the empire that has taken control of our country.
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Like 2 weeks ago F
roger
If you think they can find a one-off text from one throw-away 'old fashioned' phone to another amid all that data you have been watching too much TV fantasy, which of course the politicians have. If you think the NSA/GCHQ have broken a properly en-cyphered short message using a key of infinite length (OTP) you didn't study Venona well enough.
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Like 2 weeks ago F
Benjamin McMurtry
I worked on this job. The site conceptual plan is not what is actually being built.
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Like 2 weeks ago
Sean
bit (b), Crumb (2b), Nibble (4b), Nickel (5b), Byte (8b, or B), Deckel (10b), Plate (16b, or 2B), Chomp (18b), Dinner (32b, or 4B), Gobble (48b, or 6B), Kilobyte KB, Megabyte MB, Gigabyte GB, Terabyte TB, Petabyte PB, Exabyte EB, Zettabyte ZB, Yottabyte YB, Brontobyte BB, Geobyte GeB, Xonabyte XB, Wekabyte WB, Vundabyte VB, Unabyte UB, Tredabyte TrB, Sortabyte SB, Rintabyte RB, Quexabyte QB, Peptabyte PeB, Ochabyte OB, Nenabyte NB, Mingabyte MiB, Lumabyte LB. There you have it, smallest amount of data to the largest.
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Like 2 weeks ago F
batvette
byte me!
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Like 1 week ago in reply to Sean F
Toby
Once again the point that the US has a, literally, insane amount of influence outside of its borders that it uses almost exclusively for its own ends and outside of any laws, international or domestic, is entirely missed.
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Like 2 weeks ago F
roger
True, an honest Englishman can no longer fly to the USA to walk a long distance trail because he can't give 'the address you will be at during your stay', let alone all the 'dangerous' stuff in the bergan(rucksack). You are getting as bad as the old East Germany.
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Like 2 weeks ago in reply to Toby F
Judy Mahaffey
The Aliens have been here for decades controlling us one way or another, we just think we have been in control of our destiny, liberty and quest for happiness. Just remember No One gets out of this life alive.
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Like 3 weeks ago F
amin jahan faiz
very risky and non economical project. breaking current strong encryptions ? good luck with that ! building faster computers is a thing everybody else is also trying. its highly unlikely that NSA alone have done something that can be substantially faster than the K computer. unless they have alien technology !
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Like 3 weeks ago F
Michael Alianell
Let them snoop on us!! I have nothing to hide!!! If they catch one lunatic that is planning on bombing on American soil, or killing innocent people, I could really not care less if they find out I cheated on the mileage on my tax returns. The only folks who are worried about this are those who have some bad stuff to hide and terrorists!!!
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Like 3 weeks ago F
ScottV
You are naive and stupid if you think your sacrifice of freedom will make you more secure. Do you have political or religious beliefs? What happens if someone who hates your beliefs gains dictatorial control of the country and decides you need to die? You are a fool and should leave my country now. You are not an American.
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Like 2 weeks ago in reply to Michael Alianell 2 Likes F
Peter Gatliff, Born in Oklahoma. Enlisted USMC 1967,Married to Conservative Republican from Iowa, Widowed at age 36 with 2 sons. Work in railroad industry most of life. Retired From SLWC RR in 2008, author of "Our Last Dance In Iowa". Die Hard Democrat.
The Gestapo would be proud. The country in now paying the price of allowing the Nazi';s into the US after WWII, giving them citizenship and letting them join the Republican Party. Well Done OSS.
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Like 3 weeks ago F
Tom Dunne
WE AS PATRIOTS,SHOULD HAVE LISTS OF ALL BEUREAUCrats,NAMES .FAMILY MEMBERS,PHONE #,ADDRESSES.THE SAME WITH ALL ELECTED OFFICALS AND UNION OFFICERS.WHEN THE CRAP HITS THE FAN WE WILL KNOW WHERE TO FIND THEM.
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Like 3 weeks ago F
Charles Michael Jones, Currently I am the only person my parents really need to help them through their last years, my mother is at Prattville Health & Rehab with a broken shoulder, my father has a shunt in his brain at home with me and they both suffer from Dementia and Alzheimer's aside from myself having had a vertebrae and four discs removed from my spine I am doing OK driving them around when they need go to a doctor and myself too. It has been a long hard life and I will see at least ten-twenty more years, they may not. I am the author of EVFCF.
Where this puts our defenses is within the purview of religious denomination, again facing off against Christians, Catholics, Mormon's, and yepppp Muslim's. As you recall it is the Muslim's that did not know their European History fully and that does not help the rest of the world to understand their movement at all, plus its advantage of being a primary government function demanding all that are Muslim cannot leave that faith and for all to comply and endorse the Sharia Law which has been rejected in many countries as well as in America as a stand alone law so none of its regulations are valid, but according to Obama Muslim's have more rights at the White House than the Roman Catholic or other religious bodies that had once been receptive at the White House removed to make room for the Muslim's and the Islamic religion. European historians are skeptical to put a label on Islam in Europe for that very reason. Si nce Insurance is a illegal Islamic activity Muslim's are restricted from having jobs that their employer would either or both sell or offer insurance, so how much insurance is this NSA building going to have per individual as... show more
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Like 3 weeks ago F
etexfisherman48
With all this data being collected it would seem key words get the attention of the monitors. What if these computers go awry and call for the arrest/apprehension of someone communicating with others about something they have learned that may not present an actual threat to the security of the country. We know Homeland Security has set out some guidelines such as returning soldiers, Christians, anti-gay marriage and anti-abortion etc. I fail to see how this information could affect the security of the nation unless there have been attempts by the above to destroy the U.S.A. If there has been I haven't heard about it. No doubt there are domestic terrorist but most of these are from the far left and the people controlling these computers are mostly from the far left. What do they do when there is a lull in terrorist talk/action? Do they then out of boredom start putting emphasis on preachers that are preaching what the bible says about the sin of homosexuality or abortion? This is a danger I see from this operation that these far left wing groups demand the government go after those that oppose their actions. This is where some of the... show more
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Like 3 weeks ago F
josephwootten
No Such Agency.
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Like 3 weeks ago F
Farpoint Relay
Besides invading the world's privacy, with the left over processing power I guess they can build skynet and crush mankind... oops...
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Like 3 weeks ago F
Jim Tate
Are you kidding. The yellow journalism here is so skewed and maladjusted I am sure your boss had to have told you to make half the yick yak up to have even ever had a shot to waste the ink it took to print your proof copy. Next time try doing at least some 3rd grade homework first before you "slide in the airport" and choke on some smog and spend the day desperately seeking a polygamist stronghold. "Facts make for better reading than do fancy adjectives". I'm still laughing at the miss info and miss perception that you felt a need to spoil what could have been an informative and interesting article. Better luck next time. Or better yet try a new profession.
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Like 3 weeks ago F
tt
Loose lips sink ships! Who benefit the most from this kind of articles ? China, Iran, Russia, and other hostile countries, etc. Most Americans have nothing to gain from knowing in details of the American spy agencies, and nothing to fear from the government reading their emails or ear droppings. I know the gov might monitor my emails and phones,but so what? That is the minimum sacrifice that I might have to pay for the safety of my family and for Americans.Foreign spies just seat at home in China, or at Starsbucks to collect freely American national top secrets from the irresponsible American news. This kind of news not only damages the national security, degrades our abilities to defense ourselves, but also makes us spending more money on defense! Many secret bases and installations such as Area 51, nuclear hideouts near Washington DC, etc. were closed and moved to other "secret" locations, and then being moved or closed again because of the media's disclosures in the name of freedom of speech. Why do media have to spy on American spy agencies and disclosure and make them available for our enemies and some "curious" Americans and activists who might be agents of... show more
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Like 3 weeks ago F
etexfisherman48
Hum, I reckon the only answer that will be suffice for you is a totally controlled society like the communist have.
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to tt 1 Like F
Michael Whitney
1984 and the pigs are winning. It's all zero's and one's. Whatever.
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Like 3 weeks ago F
Manuel Alves
"$2 billion center" Funny... China is paying for it (buying USA debt).
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Like 3 weeks ago F
tt
The cost of $2 billions for the center is no big deal. The McGuire nuclear power plants (2 units) costs 2 billions almost 30 years ago. I used to work there.
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to Manuel Alves
justmythreecents
aa
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Like 3 weeks ago F
radicalpragmatist
I, too, think they aleady know too much about each of us, but I'm not going off the deep end, like some others. People like Mark Newell worry me more than Government snoops. I lead a pretty boring life, so watching me is going to be a very dull assignment, and I'm sure not going to waste what little disposable funds I have by filling the basement with food and guns. The food becaquse I'll never need it and the guns because that's a sure way to call attention to myself. 1/2d
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Like 4 weeks ago F
etexfisherman48
Yea I seem to recall Jacob you know the man that wrestled with God and had a close relationship with God refused to prepare for the warning of the coming famine thinking God ain't gonna let that happen to him and his family. Well guess what, Jacob and family ended up going down to Egypt a totalitarian country for food and survival.
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to radicalpragmatist F
Ali Gates
I went ghost-white reading this article- then i turned beat-red upon realizing it's probably an April Fools' joke. Well played Wired. I'll get you next year.
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Like 4 weeks ago F
etexfisherman48
You are an example of what is wrong with this country of people and that is staying in denial of the coming reality.
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Like 3 weeks ago in reply to Ali Gates 2 Likes F
cambia
Wired doesn't know how to use Google maps? There are photographs of this facility. Beyond that, the Deseret News, one of the most conservative papers in the country did a much more coherent piece on the NSA station three years ago.
I appreciate Wired deleting the really embarrassing "Spy Who Came in from the Coal," intro paragraph, which was riddled with errors and was included in another version of this article. But what's with the nonsense about polygogs? Three paragraphs? And this relates.... how? The wives are out to get us? Is this the Twilight Zone or an article about violation of civil liberties? This is one lousy article about an incredibly important issue. Next time find a journalist to cover the subject - not an engineer. If you're a reader, look around. You will find much better coverage - articles which actually makes sense, and define the issues, unlike this truly bad piece of writing.
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Like 4 weeks ago F
Han van der Heide
Why does per cent get replace by Nicole GINET? D@mn those space aliens
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Like 4 weeks ago F
Han van der Heide
Hmm why does per-cent get replaced by NIcole Ginet?
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Like 4 weeks ago F
Noojoke Seriously, Republicans have NO Family values and mean to kill us for their anti-American vatican gov. to take over for Belial. (Belair). Those who lie have no morals. Those who have no morals HATE GOD. Those who hate me hate the One who sent me. Case closed. 'Vengeance is mine.' saith the Lord.
Yeah, watch what you say if you're a crook doing bad and dirty things to people....we'll catch you anyway!
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Like 4 weeks ago F
Jay Denison
One word about this article: sensationalism.
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Like 4 weeks ago F
michael mcneill
stay off the internet..the king monkey obama is watching
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Like 4 weeks ago F
michael mcneill
This comment was flagged for review.
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Like 4 weeks ago F
Are you a cracker? Where do you make your money?
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Like 4 weeks ago in reply to michael mcneill F
michael mcneill
their excuse seems to be that they (the government) can't know what we as individuals are thinking..they hide behine the people who vote (them into office)
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Like 4 weeks ago F
Jesse Douglas
A legitimately telling, well-written, and thought provoking article. Thanks! I already knew most of these things, I just didn't know the details.
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Like 4 weeks ago F
Tom Buffone
Why do people who really have nothing new to say take up so much space on this topic?
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Like 4 weeks ago F
Heurist
Where is that happening?
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Like 4 weeks ago in reply to Tom Buffone F
1uncle
We should never have allowed muslims into the counry. We should have stopped immigration in 1960. Too many people causing too many problems at too high a price. We should never have started breeding dummies on welfare. Think of the taxes saved, the less crime? And all just to make more demorats.
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4 weeks ago F
Heurist
Then you recognize that the demographic changes were intentional, right?
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Like 4 weeks ago in reply to 1uncle F
Dennis Hastings
Drinking while blogging again.
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Like 4 weeks ago in reply to 1uncle F
Grosvenor
I live near this--hopefully I can get a job.
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Like 1 month ago F
ch1nish
The only people that should be worried are those that are untrustworthy. Republicans, and people with lots to hide.
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Like 1 month ago F
David
You are joking correct?
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Like 1 month ago in reply to ch1nish F
Alan MacDonald
How come when I just listed all the comments 587, that it said, "584 of 587"? Where are the 3 unlisted comments? Are my 3 attempts to comment among the 3 unlisted? Inquiring minds want to know how your censoring works. Thanks, Alan MacDonald
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Like 1 month ago F
ozzythaman
all this, all the wars and all the imprisonment of american people, all because of 9 people..
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Like 1 month ago F
rearviewmirrors
Outstanding article.
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Like 1 month ago F
PatriotEngineerAnalystUSA
I enjoyed Bamford's article. Very entertaining. Is the sky falling? Highly doubtful! Former NSA employees claiming abuses of constitutional rights and "we are one step from a turnkey totalitarian state" makes excellent theater, though! I can't wait for Hollywood's first attempt to profit on this great stuff! Binney can be played by Tom Hanks!
The congressional oversight of these efforts is already very extensive. To me, they (NSA) are doing exactly what they should be doing. Undoubtedly, as with any compartmented and cutting-edge national-security program, there will be abuses, waste, fraud, etc. The criminals and perpetrators will eventually be caught.
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Like 1 month ago F
lolll...what you write on the web isn't the only way you're vetted for a security clearance...
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Like 4 weeks ago in reply to PatriotEngineerAnalystUSA F
David McKee
Wish I could believe what your wrote, but that would require patriots and real Americans working for the NSA. Insead, they will be staffed with the same sorts of dead-eyed slaves you meet at the DMV when you need to get your license renewed. Soulless meat-puppets that have no problem destroying your life at the touch of a button.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to PatriotEngineerAnalystUSA F
BillRind
This complex needs to be burned down to the ground with all the treasonous scumbags in it. this is treasonous if not total communist information take over. the last Four presidents will answer for this in one way or the other.
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Like 1 month ago F
chainsaw82
In the US government, the punishment for incompetence is to give them more money that we don't have. I would like to get a job in the government with no accountability, unlimited budgets, and a cushy pension. I chose to be a productive member of society instead.
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Like 1 month ago F
chainsaw82
"the NSA, overflowing with tens of billions of dollars in post-9/11 budget awards".. Our country is bankrupt, but they just spend and spend and spend.. What an enormous waste of taxpayer money.
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Like 1 month ago F
Kyle Michael Porter
great article. riveting, actually. i really enjoyed reading it.
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Like 1 month ago F
Thea Linnemeier
The overarching goal of intelligence services should be transparency, not secrecy. Satellite pictures of nuclear and ICBM sites made the initial SALT treaties possible. The idea that intelligence agencies need to know everything about us but we don't get to know anything about them is fundamentally flawed. This transparency needs to go both ways. If the CIA, NSA, Mossad, and ISI were all totally transparent to everyone on the earth, we'd live in a far safer and more peaceful world.
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Like 1 month ago F
Michael French
NO do not watch what you say. That is clearly what they want people to stop telling the truth to others, Forget it. I will not comply. And as for consent I do not legitimate this charade by voting and is all that voting accomplishes. When was the last time you watched the voes counted? Exactly. No this is not the time to give up, we have not begun to push back yet, wouldn't it be nice to at least try before we give up?
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Like 1 month ago F
Kate Jones
Paranoia and testosterone make a lethal brew. We're approaching the Kool-Aid moment on the global scale. It's easier to destroy than to build and preserve. Destruction and violence are the last resort of a failed philosophy. "Give me liberty or give me death" may have been a noble sentiment, but dead men can't make changes. As long as we have breath, we can strive to rescue human civilization and the human future. The antidote to malignant ideas are sound ideas. Brains, not brawn. Reason, not rationalization. Do not feed the ravenous beast of our predatory past. Even atheists can agree to the wisdom of these simple precepts: 1. Thou shalt not kill. 2. Thou shalt not steal. 3. Thou shalt not deceive. Or are we now getting our retribution for a century of malfeasance; are we getting "the government we deserve'? Are we really going to let the apocalyptic demented among us engineer the end of all life on earth? That will be the ultimate sacrilege against your God--to destroy the patient handiwork that's been billions of years in the making. The final frontier is the human mind. Here is where ideas, both nurturing and murderous, fight for their survival. And ideas have consequences. Which side... show more
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Like 1 month ago F
Andrew
Comment not working.
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Like 1 month ago F
JohnP
I have never seen a larger gathering of brainless nutjobs than I see here after reading these comments. Nothing to say because anything said that contains a shred of intelligence would not be understood by any of you! Anyone who has read through these comments is now a little bit dumber for having read them!
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Like 1 month ago F
Apoctopus
Including this one. Thanks for the contribution.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to JohnP 1 Like F
Peter Michalicka
1984 - Big Brother is watching us ...
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Like 1 month ago F
William Blue
I am very surprised they let you post this story, aren't you looking over your shoulder(kidding... sorta).
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Like 1 month ago F
ncgal
I worry like many of you and nothing is going to be done about Obama. Be right with God because this is all setting the stage for Christ's second coming.
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Like 1 month ago F
drake006
@+Jimbo, What the Heck are you afraid of? Blad, Ugly, Traitor to the US Constitution and Coward ExNSA/CIA Boss Mikie Hayden? How much is the No Such Aholes paying you for this article? 3000 innocent Government trusting people died because of his cowardice or incompetance. No Comment?, WTF? WTF?
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Like 1 month ago F
Fortis Imago
Sooo where can I post my resume for a position in the NSA? here? they can just read it :O
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Like 1 month ago F
Fortis Imago
What are you people so afraid of? really you think you are that important that the NSA is reading your crummy email or your FB posts like some jealous lover? Boring! The U.S. has about a hell of a long way to go before reaching Stalinist or Maoist totalitarianism, and until you are being hauled away for your boring posts on Wired, like mine, we should only fear the fear itself...:P
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Like 1 month ago F
Bob Brown
I'm not afraid... I'm angry! What I write to my friends is none of their damn' business!
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Like 4 weeks ago in reply to Fortis Imago F
disqus503
latest update: the NSA is abandoning Windows as a platform and will run the entire data center as an iPad app...
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Like 1 month ago F
chetdude
Now I AM worried... :-)
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Like 1 month ago in reply to disqus503 F
disqus503
Apparently there is some truth to the rumor that the NSA is abandoning Windows as a platform for this project and will run the entire data center as an iPad app...
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Like 1 month ago F
taylorw
Good article but the first couple paragraphs can be misleading. Don't lump the FLDS sects in with the rest of Utah, they are just as foreign to us as they are to everyone else in the country!
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Like 1 month ago F
Marc Salerno
It's just a matter of time before someone misuses this data...if tricky Dick did it in the 70's, there's no doubt that some unscrupulous politician in the future will do the same... They try to justify the abuse of our personal liberties due to their fear of an enemy with no common border, but a belief system that threatens our way of life. Limiting our personal freedoms and privacy is not the answer. With these super computers, elections can be fixed with the flip of a switch...the future does not bode well for personal freedoms and liberty in this country... PS- LOL...wondering if NARUS will send these threads for someone to review...we're all on the most wanted list now...
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Like 1 month ago F
Fern Henley
We all know the problem. The solution to the problem is: 1. NAWAPA , 2. HR 1489, 3. Fire the Wall Street water boy.
Like
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1 month ago F
chetdude
Right...and put in romney?
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Fern Henley F
Edgar
y bet frien' alf-ite ake $85 an our on te copute. e a been fire for 10 ont but lat ont e ceck Wa $8267 jut Working on te copute for a feW our. ea ore on ti ite.... LazyCash1.com
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Like 1 month ago F
Kindred Spirits
James Bamford didn't make his comments about Mormons very clear... They haven't practiced plural marriage for 100 years or so. He mixed up Mormons with a splinter group and gets facts mixed up a bit. the rest of the info is pretty interesting.
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Like 1 month ago F
Cal Cousineau
People that do things, and save peoples lives, are not the people who comment on a "news story like this". Its the people out there working, and not falling into "fear" like this stupid post.
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Like 1 month ago F
res08hao
This is good news. I like the idea of eavesdropping on college professors, Hollywood leftists, all reporters, OWS scum, religious fanatics, congress, all the usual suspects.
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Like 1 month ago F
fgjhfgjh
The tragedy of all this is that the private sector - industry, academia, and independent people - could use this hardware and software to solve truly nasty problems in every area dealing with numbers. Every area. Of course, this stuff WILL eventually make it out of NSA-land; Bletchley Park/etc. proves it. I only hope I live long enough to see it . . .
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Like 1 month ago
Boom ForReal
Those with power are the most paranoid. In the past they built temples, castles to view the whole city. They burned books in an attempt to extinguish knowledge. They repressed their people through dictatorships, strict rules and demanded nationalist pride. They have now adapted technology to find out everything that we are doing to see if an anomaly stands out in the system that needs to be deleted. Same concept throughout history just different adaptations. The computer however calculates much faster then any human ever could and can easily seek out "imperfections" Metropolis, 1984, Tron, The Matrix upon many many other fictional stories have warned us that those who hold the power, mean only to make duplicates of themselves and destroy any who stand out or get in the way. So, go load your gun and prepare for you so called revolution. History repeats itself and revolution too has proven to only replace one power with another. If we are subject to continue on the line of evolution and adapt to changes that take place, hopefully we can leave behind the need for Hierarchy and learn to live as collective thinkers and move in unison with another to create a better world...hmmm strange that's almost... show more
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Like 1 month ago F
Patrick Sarmiento
I want to play tetris!
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Like 1 month ago F
Stephen Fortner
My comments here are largely in response to user das, who posts a very cogent and articulate defense of everexpanding SIGINT capabilities on the part of the US government. In particular, "And if your reply is that we should simply have no such capabilities on this scale because they could be abused, we put ourselves at a significant disadvantage versus our adversaries. Do we absurdly sacrifice the end to the means, crippling our foreign intelligence capability because it can't be completely open and transparent? Our openness and freedoms are valuable, but they need to be protected. In order to protect them, the government can and does keep secrets about all manner of things. You'll get totalitarian control, alright, but it won't be from the United States." I get this line of reasoning entirely, but isn't it just as dangerous to absurdly assert that the end justifies the means? I agree that falling behind foreign adversaries in SIGINT could, in the short term, pose a greater danger to our freedoms than our being Bluffdale-level aggressive about it would. In the long term, however, my concern is not that the capabilities described in the Wired article _could_ be abused, it's that they... show more
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Like 1 month ago F
Col_Haughnaughty
All leading to no good as man does not have it in him to be good when power over others is going on. With the beast system coming, it is all unimaginable how much control they will have, unless your willing to strip yourself from all of these electronic gadgets. When you are ready to go under ground, planning will be essential to your survival but electronics will need to go.
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Like 1 month ago F
bluedawg1
Guess you can quit worrying about Facebook and Google spying on you. If you ever did..........
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Like 1 month ago F
bluedawg1
The little green men have it all under control from their air-conditioned condo, deep in the heart of the Utah mountains. Have no fear. They don't want our women, only a few raw cow parts and Giorgio Tsoukalos.
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Like 1 month ago F
Walt Stawicki
Over a decade ago I started toying with the statement: 'when big brother comes, we will be buying him.' It was a reflection on Intel inside and Gates etc. I saw it grow. Now the phone tracks you, and probably is a "friend" of NSA on facebook! They have tried to get us to buy chips "for the childrens' safety" even. Now we should know better, but hot damn! those apps are so awesome!!! And we keep buying in. Where is your consent? Read the fine print while Lysander Spooner churns in his unquiet grave!
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Like 1 month ago F
Mark
4. Backup generators and fuel tanksCan power the center for at least three days. Oh those nasty weak links...
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Like 1 month ago F
HannahWd
Seriously? Bluffdale is deep in the Utah desert? I see what you did there. It makes us think of Los Alamos and Area 51, but Bluffdales actually just another part of the suburban sprawl that is the Salt Lake Valley. Its about a half-hour drive to Salt Lake City, if traffic cooperates. Deep in the Utah desert? Hardly.
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Like 1 month ago F
Karl_Ess
So glad to see some folks realize the possibilities. We MUST be ever vigilant! If we err, let it be on the side of caution. For whatever motivation, not all that is said & done by a US Pres. is truthful. As a veteran, I accord the Commander in Chief due respect. BUT, I don't believe all that I hear, For those out there who are naive enough to believe all the (dis)information spewing forth from various ?leaders? I say "rent the 30ish year old movie ' The Manchurian Candidate' ". Yes it is fiction, but consider the possibilities!!! God Bless & Protect us all.
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Like 1 month ago F
Price Comparison Website
This information is incredible, did not know him.
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Like 1 month ago F
Chandler Arrington
Very informative article.
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Like 1 month ago F
JeffNielson
"Das" is very obviously a government Troll. No one but a Troll saves copies of their old comments. No one but a Troll visits sites posting content they DISAGREE with - and then spend hours and hours of their time repeating the same propaganda. Any REAL person visiting a site they strongly disagreed with would (at most) stick around to post one or two comments - and then never be seen again. Note also that a VERY common Troll tactic is to post LOTS of long comments just to attempt to confuse people - or simply sabotage/hijack the entire dialogue. Everyone here should simply IGNORE this Troll.
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Like 1 month ago F
drake006
Low Tech beats Hi Tech anyday. The NSA Aholes could not find UBL for 10 years with all their computers and satelites. What's more simple then a prayer/worry bead code? Writing on a bald head and letting the hair grow back? JIMMY will you please say something about Mikie Hayden and his failures and abuses? Please.
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Like 1 month ago F
Amaterasu101
Oh, Joy. And with the latest from Obama, creating a dictatorship... Yeah, turnkey totalitarian state.
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Like 1 month ago
roastytoasty
DAS says: "How exactly should the US conduct foreign SIGINT in a digital world? Or should NSA be enjoined from conducting any foreign surveillance within the US? This has nothing to do with scaremongering it's a legitimate question that deserves an answer." The legit answer is downsizing the bureaucracy that dreams up these plans for collecting information that bureaucrats-in-charge deem "important". Before bureaucrats discovered that pushing the politically correct culturally diverse meme would keep them in the chips an event like 911 would have resulted in Muslim nations around the world being shot at, attacked and bombed until the perps were handed over and virtual annihilation if they weren't. Nowadays the hive-mind bureaucrats commandeer vast sums of money and employ millions of AFLCIO/AFSCME/uname-it unionized bureaucrats to do what the bureaucrats do: defend the "rights" of every nutcase in the whole world while collecting truckloads of information that remains dormant until a citizen somehow runs afoul of bureaucratic regulation. Then what bureaucrats have collected comes out and other bureaucrats start looking closely at taxrecords, arrest records, driving records, medical records, etc. SIGINT ain't bad in itself, DAS. This old world is filled with dangers and intrigue. Intelligence work is as old as civilisation. It's this latest iteration... show more
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Like 1 month ago F
J__M__M
I understand how serious and far reaching the implications are here, but for some reason the only thing that enters my mind is this rather short, yet somewhat profound statement: Towelie says, don't forget to bring a towel! Well, Dad, you still think all that college money would have been just as well spent flushed down the toilet now?
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Like 1 month ago F
=== === I think dropping all that college acid flushed your mind down the toilet.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to J__M__M F
J__M__M
I would guess maybe 3/100 people on average would see the relevance of my comment, if that. Obscure? Yes. Weak? Probably. Constructive? Probably not. Mensa shit? Hell no, not even close But relevant. Have I killed more than my share of brain cells? Probably, but I have enough left to know this: you ain't one of the three. Thanks for the diagnosis though, Dad totally agrees.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Faye Kane Homeless Brain F
Jon
-jnijk
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Like 1 month ago F
Andrew Purvis
While your awareness of Borges is a delight to me, Borges does not suggest the information is not understood, but that most of it is gibberish, lacking even a language through which to understand it.
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Like 1 month ago F
Don
Sheer fantasy
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Like 1 month ago F
Daniel Wright
Yep and that about does it for America. Oh well.
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Like 1 month ago F
Karl_Ess
A word (actually 2) "George Orwell" ! this from one in the womb in 1937 Germany but born in the USA. Never say 'Never'. I love the USA as my parents loved Germany. But, I will NOT join the sheep headed to slaughter. If I err, it will be on the side of caution!!! p.s My 3rd (& final) career was working for the government. God Bless us All.
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Like 1 month ago F
Ron Luce
Oops. Replied to the wrong person. Disqus sucks.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Karl_Ess F
Circa53
Anybody got any info on the big data center outside Casper Wyoming?..Ask about it if you go through there and watch the weird looks you get..and no answers..
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Like 1 month ago F
drake006
*Mr. Bamford*, Please, tell me why EX NSA/CIA Boss Mikie Hayden (Coward and Traitor to his Country, Uniform and the US Constitution and Punk Bitch) did not stop "9-11", when he monitored AQ Hijackers in the US calling the Yemen AQ Headquarters, pre 9-11? and all he had to do was pick up a phone and call and notify the Feds about them. It was mentioned in "the Shadow Factory" and "the Spy Factory". I love your work,Thanks again, Peace.
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Like 1 month ago F
NealK
After reading this article, I suddenly realized why Obama wants us to keep talking about contraception, and why he keeps tossing out chump bait in every recent speech about domestic oil drilling. All the better to distract the media lemmings and the public from this evil -- this ultimate monstrosity. This project and all its enablers are enemies of the United States and a cancer on the Constitution. (And please don't bother replying that it started under Bush -- Obama could have ended it with a stroke of a pen).
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Like 1 month ago F
Ron Luce
Obama is the one fixated on denying women contraception? Wow. You live in one weird reverse-o world.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to NealK 1 Like F
robcypher
Time for your meds.
o Like o 1 month ago oF Eugene Marner
By the time they get their exaflop computer in 2018, the grid will be down permanently in some places, sporadically in others, and the brief romance with the Internet will be on its way to becoming the stuff of legend. This is an ambitious spy program, to be sure, but its main impact in the end will be the enrichment of contractors.
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Like 1 month ago F
Parker
Skynet? Fact or fiction? Just because the "machines" are bureaucrats and the terminators where uniforms and badges... it's pretty clear Skynet is now with us. Where's John Connor when you need him...
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Like 1 month ago F
BoiledCabbage, And the clocks were striking thirteen.....
Suppose "they" send a postcard? What then?
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Like 1 month ago F
Kenneth Larson
There's one problem with this article I can't get passed. It claims the facility is being built "deep in the Utah desert," which to me makes it seem extra shifty and secretive. This facility is being built at Camp Williams, which is located right in-between the heavily populated Salt Lake City and Provo. All the land around Camp Williams is on the fast track of becoming developed suburbs, if not already. Yesterday I was hiking near Hanksville, Utah. THAT is deep in the desert.
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Like 1 month ago F
Abraham Sangeap
Flood the Internet with your data. It will make it harder for the NSA to parse through. Never forgive, never forget.
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Like 1 month ago F
Miguel Dg
this facility may finally break Kryptos K4
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Like 1 month ago F
Clifford
It's Lehi not Bluffdale. And I live near it. They are going to be tracking my porn viewing habits.
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Like 1 month ago F
C. L. 2
I <3 NSA. I <3 the GOV. I <3 USA... (So, please don't lock me up) :o/
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Like 1 month ago F
Jared
y claate' aunt ake $76/our on te internet. e a been Witout Work for 9 ont but lat ont er pay Wa $8817 jut Working on te internet for a feW our. ea ore ere ...LazyCash1.com
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Like 1 month ago F
solid_ekans
...
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Jared F
Mdissident
Senator Frank Church***, the first chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee investigating FISA abuses by the NSA made the following dire warning after reviewing the structure and direction of the NSA,
That capacity at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left; such [is] the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesnt matter. There would be no place to hide. If government ever became a tyranny, if a Dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology. Emphisis added NBC, Meet the Press August 17, 1975; The Shadow Factory, James Bamford; page 344
This statement was made 26 years before September 11, 2001 during which time the Intelligence community had...
show more
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Like 1 month ago F
drake006
*Mr. James, Please tell me why ex NSA Boss Mikie Hayden did not stop 9-11, when he monitored AQ Hijackers in the US calling the Yemen AQ Headquarters, pre 9-11? It was mentioned in "the Shadow Factory" and "the Spy Factory". Thanks.
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Like 1 month ago F
Albert Thiel
Looks like BIG BROTHER is watching more and more ....
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Like 1 month ago F
free sex
NICE!
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Like 1 month ago
Mike Buck
I would *love* to see AES-128 get broken. considering anyone who uses it is a fool. there are much more secure encryption methods. like /anything/-2048
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Like 1 month ago F
Ryan Michael Scott
Just wanted to let you know that it would take at 20 petaflop computer 1.65e+130 years to crack a single 256 bit encryption password. Just saying, if you encrypt, it can't ever be brick forced, ever ever ever
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Like 1 month ago F
Michael K. Eidson
Is it wise to trust a source who can only speak by breaking the trust of his previous employer? NSA employees sign agreements not to divulge such matters as Binney is purported to have divulged. These agreements are not terminated by the termination of one's employment with the agency.
And is it a bit ironic that the people who are crying the loudest about their privacy being invaded are also the ones crying the loudest that the government should not be allowed any privacy itself?
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Like 1 month ago F
Not
In no way, shape, or form is an individual's privacy comparable to the government's privacy, or 'state secrets,' which I might add is routinely abused in FOIA request denials. The individual is not running computer systems that require 65 Megawatts of power, intercepting and analyzing every single communication on the planet. That is an enormous amount of power, and to casually flip a statement like that is irresponsible, misinformed, and frankly very naive.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Michael K. Eidson 3 Likes F
John Cock
Your point makes no sense. Firstly the government is elected by the people to serve the people, the people pay them their salaries and budgets and as such some kind of transparency should be in place. Their actions affect your life and not the other way round. Secondly some people working in these Stalin/Hitler type agencies have a concious and feel they need to speak up. Yes they sign an agreement not to disclose but the president also signs an oath to protect the people and their rights does he not? Why can the office of the president do as they like against a signed paper but people working for a corrupt agency cannot?
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Michael K. Eidson 2 Likes F
Ronald Hinchley
What's going to happen to Vienna Virginia? But I have to say, the NSA was cool when it was mostly military. They were thought to be 10 years ahead of the civilian world. But now I think some private labs are better. And good people will retire and not be replaced because working there is creepy. It's certain they will be in continuous decline for years to come. They'll get things done by massive overspending that leads to corruption; which grows vigorously in secret.
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Like 1 month ago F
RABEYES
This is pretty deeply troubling. I was simply outraged at first nine years ago when the Bush data-tapping was made public. I now suppose it may be a necessary part of dealing with asymetric threats, but I'd sure feel better if there was a way to guarantee that the data streams would only be individually analysed after court approval by a FISA-like process.
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Like 1 month ago F
Missa Ndrea
"They came here to practice what has become known as the principle, marriage to multiple wives." So the WOMEN came to Utah to marry multiple wives??? Oh. You mean this article was written from the point of view of non-women entirely, gotcha.
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Like 1 month ago F
Missa Ndrea
The sentence should be constructed, if the author actually knew or liked any women, like so: "Men and woman came to Utah so the men could justify their need to control multiple women and kick the surplus boys to the curb". Just saying, the deal with polygamy is that when one man marries several wives at a time, then several men don't even get one wife. And the original sentence is written as if women are merely objects. Which indicates the author either doesn't actually know any women, or else doesn't consider women entirely human and probably confuses us with inflatable fuck dolls. Gee, I wonder why I've never liked men, I just can't figure it out!
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Missa Ndrea 1 Like F
Brian Gutierrez
test comment
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Like 1 month ago
mwallek
It would be soooo wonderful, and the nation would have some of it's wealth back, if these scumbag facist patriots were all dead.
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Like 1 month ago F
John Cock
There never has been any real wealth to get back, just a factitious lie and an over-inflated but empty economy built on lies and printing notes from thin air at the discretion of a few powerful individuals.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to mwallek F
to "Nothing Much" comment,... How do you combat against this totalitarian actions against people? Well here is a suggestion: Make an email to send everyone you know, explain this is from your neigbor, a guy just like every other guy, who goes to work every day, comes home, eats, sleeps, and repeats daily. I am a "regular guy" post this webpage for your friends to view also, and write the rest of your email with every bad key word you can think of:....
Bin Laden, Terrorist, nazi, obama, militia, bombing, explosives, landmines, WTC. , hijacking, airplane, etc. etc... tell everyone to pass it on, ... boom! we just overloaded their precious system, and made an extra 20 years work for them to wade through with no results! Simple!
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Like 1 month ago F
1crappie2
Aw just Cloward Piven the danged thing. What if everyone in America yelled "I'm a Spy" at the same time? Why, they'd be too busy chasing ghosts and shadows of ghosts to continue destroying your freedom..heh!
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Like 1 month ago F
Noctilucent Studios, Maker of fantastical Cabinets of Curiosity.
"23757huiherurhr4rjroijo34i'trhoh'rgRESWkop'////////////......TTf 9920984329048huhhui3hu././22222222223e.e.//...e/" Let's see the NSA decode THAT!
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Like 1 month ago F
Isael Pelletier
Most key players in the Data Center industry have way bigger DCs than this.. 4X 25k square foot is less than half the size of any modern (5 years or less) DC. Supernap in Las Vegas has 2.2 millions square foot and 500 MVA of power capacity, that's only 1 DC!!!
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Like 1 month ago F
jeffinoregon
move comment, see below.
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Like 1 month ago F
RR
" it missed the near-disastrous attempted attacks by the underwear bomber" I guess he didn't buy them online.
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Like 1 month ago F
Cameron Willow
Learn about the NSA and their connections to Fort Meade, Maryland if you wanna peer into that rabbit hole.
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Like 1 month ago F
Cameron Willow
If you want to go down the rabbit hole and learn about the NSA learn their involvement at Fort Meade, Maryland. It's a pretty deep rabbit hole.
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Like 1 month ago F
roger
What does the Dept of Justice's Inspector General group actually do ?? How are they Funded ?? If you try to find out, you will find out its mission and funding is in the Black, Like the CIA and the NSA... hopefully they catch bad guys, All 3 groups... the actual truth is no one will ever know what any of these groups REALLY do because its a SECRET... and that might drive us crazy, but its still secret...good enough for me, this story is great Science Fiction...might as well be an Area 51 story...
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Like 1 month ago F
Guest
Nothing to see here. Was suppose to be in reply to
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Like 1 month ago F
Ordeith
Oh no, it is quite public. Its called Google.
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Like 1 month ago F
John
I hope they incorperate some kind of grey water cooling into the building. Probably not, I mean, they have billions why try and be efficient and conserve water.
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Like 1 month ago F
vayapues
what on Earth? Why is this story linked to on techmeme? I followed it here to read a tech story, and instead got an anti-mormon story. I am sure it eventually got to the tech, but after the first several paragraphs, I gave up.
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Like 1 month ago F
ChairmanMauzer
What's anti-mormon about it? It's no secret that there are polygamist groups in that area. The article even identified their sect rather than lumping them in with LDS at large.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to vayapues 4 Likes F
Apoctopus
Some people just like to take offense.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to ChairmanMauzer 2 Likes F
Kush Singh
This is great news. ................ The Freedom fighter's are doing the right thing , just , they had to do this many year back........... NSA should provide this technology to all of it friends across the world, specially to India (for monitoring Pakistan and China)
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Like 1 month ago F
MTMBM
Help keep them just a little bit busier, put a message to them in your email sig: http://www.wiretapthis.com/
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Like 1 month ago F
tengdis
This comment was flagged for review.
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Like 1 month ago F
cowtownkidd
"Mr. Spicoli has been nice enough to offer us some pizza. Be my guest. Get a Good one."
Like
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1 month ago in reply to tengdis F
Simon Edhouse, Entrepreneur: Software Developer/Entrepreneur - [Education: Master of Science & Technology Commercialization]
The (thinking) public craves data-transparency (i.e. wikileaks). The intelligence community, (NSA etc) who propose and implement installations like the Utah Data Center, crave a kind of data-transparency too. These apparently diametrically opposed forces appear in some ways to be inversely proportional to each other, (not in terms of power and resources) They are asymmetrical, yet strangely symmetrical in their quests.
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Like 1 month ago F
Anil, Indian, Blogger, Student, Nature lover, MBA Aspirant
:O
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Like 1 month ago F
A Person
Ahh, this really brings something into perspective for me. AMD's 'bulldozer' design suddenly makes sense. It now looks like an encryption cracking asic, that also does general purpose computing. Feel free to tell me I'm full of shit.
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Like 1 month ago F
Kai Lucas-Baradan
n/m
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Like 1 month ago F
IgorNance
EMP target?
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Like 1 month ago F
you bet
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Like 1 month ago
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in reply to IgorNance F
Guest
Comment removed.
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Like 1 month ago F
RandomCommenting
Our true nationality is mankind. H.G. Wells
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Scott McCain
sensr - pick up a book once in a while, that has words with more than one syllable, and read it. It might open doors you otherwise would never know were there.
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Guest 1 Like F
Chris4362947
What language is this?
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Like 1 month ago in reply to Guest F
Corey
You make it sound like this is secretly being built in the middle of nowhere. For a second I thought I was reading a conspiracy piece on Area 51. But if you have been there you know it's not "Deep in the Utah desert," but rather 20 mins from downtown Salt Lake City and neighbors the freeway, Adobe, Microsoft, and a new mall.
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Like 1 month ago F
Lin Rich
It is not being built to be kept a secret. The objective is to put fear in to people. Just like has been done in the past in other countries and probably ours too. In plain and simple language, the Homeland Security, CIA and what have you, have called more than half this country "terrorists" because their beliefs are not the same as the people in charge right now. So, this IS a threat that more than half this country better comply. And, it seems, that our dear Republican Senator from Utah is in full agreement with.
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1 month ago in reply to Corey 2 Likes F
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@ACLU The NSA Is Building the Country's Biggest Spy Center http://t.co/JNOXAlCI http://t.co/i5iDHpil 3 days ago @FereJohn
The NSA has turned its spy apparatus on the US and its citizens |Threat Level | http://t.co/JNOXAlCI http://t.co/i5iDHpil 3 days ago
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The NSA Is Building The Country's Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)

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The NSA Is Building the Countrys Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)

UTAH DATA CENTER

1 VISITOR CONTROL CENTER

4 BACKUP GENERATORS AND FUEL TANKS

5 WATER STORAGE AND PUMPING

The NSAS SPY NETWORK

2 AEROSPACE DATA FACILITY, BUCKLEY AIR FORCE BASE, COLORADO

3 NSA GEORGIA, FORT GORDON, AUGUSTA, GEORGIA

4 NSA TEXAS, LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, SAN ANTONIO

5 NSA HAWAII, OAHU

6 DOMESTIC LISTENING POSTS

7 OVERSEAS LISTENING POSTS

8 UTAH DATA CENTER, BLUFFDALE, UTAH

9 MULTIPROGRAM RESEARCH FACILITY, OAK RIDGE, TENNESSEE

10 NSA HEADQUARTERS, FORT MEADE, MARYLAND

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