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Utah Spy Center........

Duck Rodgers

Duck Rodgers

Well-Known Member
Great article. I've read Bamford's books and they are massively long snorefests, but I can appreciate the often inane detail in-relatively- short form:

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

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 world’s 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 trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital “pocket litter.” It is, in some measure, the realization of the “total information awareness” program created during the first term of the Bush administration—an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans’ privacy.
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Does this baby make you proud to say it's in our state or scare the hell out of you?
 
Isn't it the subject of "Person of Interest"? I saw the pilot episode of that show, it was similar to this thing.

I hope they don't spy on me...
 
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"If it will cut down DUI's then who gives a damn", or something like that. Perfect world here we come!

GoJazz said:
Welcome to totalitarian rule. Liberty is dead. Ron Paul 2012 lol
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Nonsense. All we need is for society to educate your children properly and everything will be peachy! Children not being forced to learn the right stuff is the only thing holding liberty back. That, and maybe a lack of taser use too.

Don't you remember when all white children were taught blackey was dumb and heathen? We might have gotten it wrong then but nobody's perfect. You can't get it right without making mistakes first. We have it right this time, by golly.
 
Duck Rodgers said:
Great article. I've read Bamford's books and they are massively long snorefests, but I can appreciate the often inane detail in-relatively- short form:

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



Does this baby make you proud to say it's in our state or scare the hell out of you?
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I could care less. I consider myself a conservative liberal and love my freedoms and rights but I'm also not naive enough to think we're able to have some Utopian society without some stringent **** like this to protect said Utopian society. Hyperbole of course but I think you get my point. Might these powers be overused or abused? Sure, but for much, much better than worse imo.

I expect some rebuttal here and am curious from those parties who do respond what truly bad can come from this? I ask that question seriously by the way, not pompously.
 
Wes Mantooth said:
I could care less. I consider myself a conservative liberal and love my freedoms and rights but I'm also not naive enough to think we're able to have some Utopian society without some stringent **** like this to protect said Utopian society. Hyperbole of course but I think you get my point. Might these powers be overused or abused? Sure, but for much, much better than worse imo.

I expect some rebuttal here and am curious from those parties who do respond what truly bad can come from this? I ask that question seriously by the way, not pompously.
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I can see where a lot of folks who swim with the media might just think things are getting better in various ways, and seriously believe the good outweighs the bad. Just go along and get along.

But delusions like this are the insanity of our time. You might be willing to empty the canals fed by Sacramento river to preserve the little fish you are told are the "canary in the mine" that signals our planet is in distress, because the infallible American Mainstream Press is saying so. But the famers with dessicated fields who aren't growing any food are probably even more symbolic as "canaries in the mines" that signal our very lives are in danger, and every right we ever thought we had is gone.

When your little set of comforts in life becomes another popped bubble, and the delusion of security is just absolutely gone, you'll have a more realistic choice: Sit on the street in the cold wind, or get up and act like a man.
 
babe said:
I can see where a lot of folks who swim with the media might just think things are getting better in various ways, and seriously believe the good outweighs the bad. Just go along and get along.

But delusions like this are the insanity of our time. You might be willing to empty the canals fed by Sacramento river to preserve the little fish you are told are the "canary in the mine" that signals our planet is in distress, because the infallible American Mainstream Press is saying so. But the famers with dessicated fields who aren't growing any food are probably even more symbolic as "canaries in the mines" that signal our very lives are in danger, and every right we ever thought we had is gone.

When your little set of comforts in life becomes another popped bubble, and the delusion of security is just absolutely gone, you'll have a more realistic choice: Sit on the street in the cold wind, or get up and act like a man.
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Thanks Orwell, now try to actually provide some ways in which this will pop my "bubble."
 
Wes Mantooth said:
Thanks Orwell, now try to actually provide some ways in which this will pop my "bubble."
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Have you got your job ap in for the new "security" center already???? Are you one of the "cleared" contractors helping to build the data center????

If so, your bubble will pop when you're laid off, your benefits are cut, or the government can't pay for it anymore. Millions of people have taken your path already, and have had to cope somehow when the system ultimately failed, and our system will fail too.

The other class of people, the class of those who have to pay directly for monstrous stupidity like this, ultimately fail to support the system because they're hobbled by all the regulations and increased taxes and just can't produce the stuff you live off of. But being "in the system" actually doesn't give anyone a pass from becoming a victim of the system. What you are involved with is morally just like a drug cartel in how it functions internally. The greatest fear the honchos actually have is not that the pitiful little commoners can hurt them, but that disloyalty within the system will undermine their particular position. Even at the highest levels of the organization, the honchos fear one another, and can and will use the very system they run to solidify their personal power. It's the same at every level of the establishment pyramid, right down to the janitors starting false rumors about one another.

But you're probably an ordinary man on the street, and you probably think that since you're just an inconsequential nobody, you have nothing to fear.

Wrong.

There's a massive computer picking up every idle comment off your phone, your computer, and tracking every move you make. There are license-plate cameras clicking off everywhere you drive, or credit card readers recording every purchase you make. And there will be a need for "production", results from the data center. The computers will follow actually stupid statistical analyses trying to match various putative risk factors or behaviors, and will interpret it with programmed rules imagined by idiots to make some kind of sense. You'll be using the wrong word in a politically-correct way, and the computer will "see" some kind of code speech behind your innocent chatter. The HSA folks will drive to whereever you are, and start giving you instructions to get in their vehicle. They won't show you any ID, and you'll punch one of them in the face, because you'll think they're violating rights you think you still have. You'll be tasored maybe six times, and fall on the curb and crack your skull. The press will quote authorities trying to tell people it's just stupid to try to resist officers.

And nobody is going to argue with them.

You'll think this can't happen to you because you're so smart. And you'll crack your head before it really dawns, too.

And there will be a million other specific ways this system will break down and just become a reign of terror itself far worse than the western-financed muslim terrorist organizations can do us.
 
Wes Mantooth said:
I could care less. I consider myself a conservative liberal and love my freedoms and rights but I'm also not naive enough to think we're able to have some Utopian society without some stringent **** like this to protect said Utopian society. Hyperbole of course but I think you get my point. Might these powers be overused or abused? Sure, but for much, much better than worse imo.

I expect some rebuttal here and am curious from those parties who do respond what truly bad can come from this? I ask that question seriously by the way, not pompously.
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*could not care less, teach.

Call me simple but I don't believe government should build cases against us citizens in advance. I also believe most of us are good people who don't require a government replacing mommy the day we turn 18.

I think a reasonable right to privacy is an inherent right and doing things that weaken that puts us on a slippery slope. I'm not radically supportive of this to the point of attacking random subway searches or airplane checks. I look at freedom as a risk to reward ratio. If you have the ability to severely injure a lot of people then society should protect itself against you. Boarding an airplane with whatever you want is too risky to allow. Using radio waves, internet, or a local library is not. Good old fashioned warrants and probable cause are enough for me there.

What good do you expect to come out of this to justify outweighing the negatives?
 
A little more on the risk:reward. Environmentally speaking, we calculate threshold values in relation to potential deaths. 3 or 4 per 1,000,000 is generally considered low enough risk to allow a certain activity. Terrorism has about the same death threshold and is way overblown as far as individual risk is concerned. Now, I don't want to sound like I'm downplaying the victims and surviving parties. It's terrible these things happen. However, terrorism is way less common and dangerous than many self controllable activities that we participate in daily.

A risk way lower than driving is one reason I don't find this kind of intrusiveness necessary. Why would I worry about crazy Saudi's hijacking airplanes when I'm many times more likely to die from an auto incident, water related activities, alcohol, or living a full city away from the closest industrial park? Aside from national security and pride, irrational fear and emotion are the reason we give so much attention to these nanny initiatives.
 
Wes Mantooth said:
It's a shame you can't use your intellect for something worthwhile other than blabbering conspiracy idiocy.
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It's a shame you can't coin an actually relevant phrase that would apply to the case.

You have actually no defense for your position except that you just don't care, and you won't even respect the people who do care. I'm sure you are not just stupid, and you just won't tell why you actually want this project going forward$$$$$$$$$$$$$

There will always be a certain number of people who won't care, and a certain number who will find employment in the ranks as implementers of plans, and there will always be well-positioned people who will use government to their purposes. It's always been that way, and for all rational expectations always will be.

And sometimes there will arise a few people who will see what's happening, and call it wrong or stupid somehow, or maybe actually recognize there are folks who are pushing the plan.

But you just look like another George Bush sort of idiot when you roll out the hate for "conspiracy idiocy". Communists and progressives have pretty well ruined that tactic for meaningful communication forever. A "conspiracy" exists, nevertheless, whenever any two people have any plan to achieve anything that folks would reject or stop if they realized what was going on.

However, if you will realize how stupid you look to characterize my point with those terms, maybe you'll want to make up an actually relevant response to what I said. Here's a clue. I was saying the HSA data center is "monstous stupidity", error-prone, and a massive obliteration of actual human freedom, putting power beyond citizen reach for discussion, protest, petition for redress of grievances, and even chilling public discussion about whether it's needful or not. It is associated with power now claimed by our government to arrest/detain and even kill American citizens deemed==== beyond any discussion or appeal=====to be an undefined threat for any reason. No more freedom of speech, belief, association, or due process, even if for just a few who for any reason come under suspicion enough to trip the decision wire and have this mine blow their lives to smithereens. It was my point that this government agency has more terror in its principles than the muslim brotherhood in practical terms for American citizens.

But I get it. You don't care, and your attitude is totally repugnant to the very roots of human freedom.

But for any "conservatives" there might be still caring, notice my point. It doesn't take a conspiracy to do this to your freedom, or idiots in government. All it takes is people who don't care. And who won't stand up and shout it down.
 
Great analogies except as you yourself mention, we're all willing participants in the "activities" you mention. No one's desiring to be on the other end of another terrorist plot.
 
Wes Mantooth said:
Great analogies except as you yourself mention, we're all willing participants in the "activities" you mention. No one's desiring to be on the other end of another terrorist plot.
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"Despite the high cost of living, it's still quite popular"

Participating in "activities" is as generic as choosing to work/live in a more dangerous target vs. rural New Mexico. You are doing a disservice to the victims of 9-11 by applying your logic which blames them for working in a high risk location. That's not fair to the victims or their families.

More personally, I don't chose who drinks and drives, what diabetic doesn't regulate their sugar levels before driving, or which socialite texts and drives anymore than I chose who decides to fly an airplane into a skyscraper. The difference is intent, which is something I already gave ground to. Why does your position imply wonton or willful negligence is more damaging than intentional? Obviously as a society we've decided the latter is, and offer Christ-like redemption to the wilfully oblivious who kill without meaning to. Redemption doesn't change the loss of a life, however, regardless of whether you decide it best to retaliate by invading Iraq or sentencing the reckless 16 year old driver to 6-months probation. Both killed your child and nothing will reverse that. It's the following actions you take that bring meaning to those who have been lost.
 
babe said:
It's a shame you can't coin an actually relevant phrase that would apply to the case.

I asked first for a specific example of how this will affect me? What freedoms will it cost me? How will I suffer? The average American suffer? But you've offered nothing specific. I suppose you spouted out the same **** 10 years ago about The Patriot Act yet it's been just fine for the far, far majority of Americans.

You have actually no defense for your position except that you just don't care, and you won't even respect the people who do care. I'm sure you are not just stupid, and you just won't tell why you actually want this project going forward$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Who said I don't respect the people who do care? If you can offer me some legitimate concerns I, or most citizens, should have, I'm listening. I just can't stand pretentious douchers who talk as if they're smarter than every person in the room and throw out generalities painting a horrifying image of the downfall of America with no actual rationale behind it other than the fact that they found Gattaca compelling and heard Jon Stewart say the same thing once. Regarding your dollar signs, I can only assume you're implying that I want this going forward for monetary reasons? Why the **** would I care?

There will always be a certain number of people who won't care, and a certain number who will find employment in the ranks as implementers of plans, and there will always be well-positioned people who will use government to their purposes. It's always been that way, and for all rational expectations always will be.

And sometimes there will arise a few people who will see what's happening, and call it wrong or stupid somehow, or maybe actually recognize there are folks who are pushing the plan.

But you just look like another George Bush sort of idiot when you roll out the hate for "conspiracy idiocy". Communists and progressives have pretty well ruined that tactic for meaningful communication forever. A "conspiracy" exists, nevertheless, whenever any two people have any plan to achieve anything that folks would reject or stop if they realized what was going on.

Trust me when I say I believe there are conspiracies, I just don't see this as the root of one.

However, if you will realize how stupid you look to characterize my point with those terms, maybe you'll want to make up an actually relevant response to what I said. Here's a clue. I was saying the HSA data center is "monstous stupidity", error-prone, and a massive obliteration of actual human freedom, putting power beyond citizen reach for discussion, protest, petition for redress of grievances, and even chilling public discussion about whether it's needful or not. It is associated with power now claimed by our government to arrest/detain and even kill American citizens deemed==== beyond any discussion or appeal=====to be an undefined threat for any reason. No more freedom of speech, belief, association, or due process, even if for just a few who for any reason come under suspicion enough to trip the decision wire and have this mine blow their lives to smithereens. It was my point that this government agency has more terror in its principles than the muslim brotherhood in practical terms for American citizens.

I'm curious how you know how error-prone this "machine" will be. How you know that due process will suddenly be eliminated?

But I get it. You don't care, and your attitude is totally repugnant to the very roots of human freedom.

Sorry broseph but I'm not naive to think that my voice matters on the large scale. And that's the problem. Government's too ****ing big. On a smaller scale, that is, at the town, county or state level, sure, my voice can truly make a difference. Nationally, **** that. I'm all but powerless imo. Call me what you will and get upset with my indifference but I'll worry about things that I can control. I'm not high enough on myself to think I can make a difference and surely not bright enough to actually make a difference even if I was high enough on myself.

But for any "conservatives" there might be still caring, notice my point. It doesn't take a conspiracy to do this to your freedom, or idiots in government. All it takes is people who don't care. And who won't stand up and shout it down.

Right. And I'm sure you're someone who's truly standing up and shouting down. I'm sure you've hit the streets and gone to Washington. I'm sure you're actively, vigilantly trying to make change. Or rather you're a man who finds solace in a message board and this is his way to vent about all of his frustrations in life.
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Get a grip.
 
In the course of a single thread I can read one of the dumbest posts by babe yet, and then read one of his best. In the same thread I think to myself, "I can't tell if franklin is being serious or not -- Dick Ranger is right." but then find myself agreeing with him a few posts later -- even though I don't really agree with what he's saying.

I hate this thread.
 
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