Standard-Examiner: Will Massive Data Center Make Utah Spy Central?

Write it down so you don't forget it, folks...  "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear"

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Amidst all the hullabaloo surrounding last week's National Security Agency (NSA) "leak" matter, wherein "off-the-reservation" 29-year-old NSA "analyst" Edward J. Snowden "spilled the beans" concerning our federal government's ongoing action of indiscriminately vacuuming-up, collecting and "warehousing" the massive electronic data of each and every U.S. citizen, friend or foe, it stands to reason that a discussion of our own locally-situated Utah Data Center would find its way to the news media front burner, and with this morning's Standard-Examiner story, our home-town newspaper provides just that.  It's a chewy AP story, well worthy of a good read, wethinks:

• Will massive data center make Utah spy central?

All-in-all, a well-researched and highly informative story, wethinks.

Gotta admit that as a University of Utah grad, your blogmeister was fascinated by this interesting story angle (among others) too:

At the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, educators are creating a certificate program that they hope will produce students ready to work at big data centers such as the Bluffdale facility. The NSA helped reviewed the curriculum, offering suggestions, and plans to offer internships to students, said Valerio Pascucci, director of the Center for Extreme Data, Management, Analysis and Visualization.

Imagine that. An academic certificate in spyin' on your neighbors.

There is one important fact element this story did leave out, however.  Although AP reporter Brady Combs does mention "...a spoof website that even includes a phony code name for the facility: "Bumblehive," a play on Utah's nickname of the "Beehive State," our usually fastidious Standard-Examiner editors committed what we believe to be dang near a "cardinal sin" for anyone who publishes stories on the net....  Yep, gentle readers, the S-E editors omitted the spoof website link. 

No hay problema, O Gentle Ones.  We managed to find it this morning after extensive Googling:

• Domestic Surveillance Directorate

Pretty hilarious knock-off of the original NSA site, don'tcha think?

And remember, folks...  "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." Mebbe you should write that down so you don't forget it.

Monday Morning Weber County Forum News Roundup

Time to clear out the post-holiday cobwebs, wethinks

Now that we've gotten Memorial Day out of the way, we'll try to kick start some discussion with a series of thought provocative items uncovered this morning whilst feverishly Googling:

1) Ultra right-wing Utah conservatives are griping that too many political moderates showed up at the March Utah GOP caucuses, resulting in a situation where the state’s most conservative politicians this year "have been outright defeated in convention or forced into primaries."  Oh, the horror of this revolting development:

• ‘Hatch effect’ hurting Utah’s most conservative lawmakers

So what about it, WCF readers?  Is the Utah GOP pendulum finally swinging back to some degree of  normalcy, as Brigham Young University professor Kelly Patterson suggests; or is Rep. Craig Frank  correct in arguing that this is this "merely a temporary setback" for the Utah GOP "wingnut faction"?

2) Interesting Salt Lake Trib story this morning, reporting that a national sportsman's advocacy group, Sportsmen for Responsible Energy Development (SFED), is squaring off (more or less) against energy development advocates in an effort to tout the value of preserving fish and wildlife populations and natural/scenic areas to help drive long-term economic growth in the Rocky Mountains:

• Report touts dollars from outdoors recreation vs. energy

"This is not meant to be a one-versus-the-other scenario," said Rob Southwick, of Southwick Associates, which compiled the report which provoked this morning's Trib story. That doesn't necessarily seem to be however what SFED's website actually says, however:

• Hunting and Fishing Imperiled

Here's the full SFED document in PDF format:

• Hunting and Fishing Imperiled Full Report

3) And here's a real eye popper. Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman is listed here, right along with the likes of George Clooney, Antonio Banderas, Denzel Washington, Jon Bon Jovi, Samuel L. Jackson, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, Liam Neeson, and George Strait:

• Huntsman named one of ‘Sexiest Men on the Planet’

First time we've ever seen the word "sexy" and the name of a politician (with the exception of Ben Franklin) connected in the same sentence, we do believe.

4) Last but not least,  Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne observes that  conservative GOP values have recently suffered some serious mission creep:

• Conservatives used to care about community. What happened?

Yeah.  We know that Dionne is a known liberal.  Weirdly enough however, this go-round, this life-long warhorse conservative (your blogmeister) agrees with dang near every word Dionne says, (in today's column, at least).

That's it for now, O Gentle Ones.

Chime in on any of the above suggested topics, or fire up a conversation all your own.

Time to clear out the post-holiday cobwebs, wethinks.

WIRED Magazine: The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say) - Updated

Although we're not quite ready to don our tin-foil hats in re this project, we believe all liberty minded American citizens should keep this situation on their radar screens.

To kickstart the Monday morning conversation, we'll shine the WCF spotlight on a fascinating internet media discussion breaking out concerning the federal government's Utah-situated $1.5 billion National Security Agency data center, which was locally billed in the below-linked 1/6/11 Deseret News story as both a propitious congressional exercise of a Senator Orrin Hatch earmark and "important in the short term for construction jobs and important in the long term for Utah's reputation as a technology center":

• Utah's $1.5 billion cyber-security center under way

As construction continues on this massive project, which was originally touted as a facility designed to protect the government's computer infrastructure from cyber attacks, several online sources are now suggesting more sinister motives, specifically, an unprecedented government invasion into every American citizen's personal privacy.

In that latter connection, here's the lede from last week's Fox News story (of all places):

WASHINGTON – What would you think if someone told you personal emails, voicemails and web searches, basically your electronic footprint, could be viewed and stored by a government official?

The feds say that would never happen but some say it is, and by 2013 it will all be funneled into the Utah Data Center.

A more formal description of the center is the First Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cyber-security Initiative Data Center.

And it’s huge. One million square feet, all to be filled with more technology and data storage than you could imagine.

It is not a stretch to say Utah is quickly becoming the data center capitol of the U.S., especially now that the state will be home to what some say is one the largest spy centers in the nation.

Plans for the facility are nothing new. Construction has been well underway for a year, and brainstorming for the facility began a decade ago. The NSA has been working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on the estimated billion dollar data center.

So why is it making headlines now?

In a bombshell article published this month in WIRED Magazine, author James Bamford interviews a whistleblower claiming the NSA has software that searches domestic folks.

This software can reveal everything from target addresses, to web searches to social media sites to email and phone calls.

It claims any communication that looks suspicious are automatically red flagged. Basically, we’re all at risk for being watched.

Read on:

• NSA dismisses claims Utah Data Center watches average Americans

Cutting to the chase, here's the article which sparked the current controversy, i.e., James Bamford's above-cited 3/15/12 WIRED Magazine expose:

• The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)

This one's a a real eye-opener, innit?

Although we're not quite ready to don our tin-foil hats in re this project, we believe all liberty minded American citizens should keep this situation on their radar screens.

And remember, folks, in the midst of this year's Sagebrush Revolution, wherein our wacky Utah Government has vowed to throw off the shackles of federal government tyranny once and for all, Senator-for-Life Hatch characterizes this cyber-security boondoggle as the "largest military construction project in recent memory," and the Utah economy becomes even more dependent on the federal dole.

Go figure.

Update 4/3/12: And there's now more interesting internet media discussion emerging on this topic:

• Data Mining You: How the Intelligence Community Is Creating a New American World

No need to worry about unchecked government surveillance, unless you've done something wrong, right?

Standard-Examiner: OUR VIEW: Common Sense Law Enforcement - Updated

Kudos to the Standard, which reminds us that we still live in the United States of America, although you might not recognise it as such, especially following Thursday's pro-totalitarian Senate vote

Top notch editorial in this morning's Standard-Examiner hard-copy edition, calling (among other things) for "common sense when it comes to how law enforcement should handle" "tense" situations, and expressing a well-placed concern that "a norm is developing where excessive force is too often the first reaction to a tense incident where law enforcement is called":

• OUR VIEW: Common sense law enforcement

The editorial board also expands it focus a little bit and makes somewhat vague and oblique reference to Senate Bill 1867 (National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012), which cleared the U.S. Senate earlier this week by a lopsided 93-7 vote:

Since Sept. 11, we have condoned actions in the terror war that are not part of our historical values. American citizens have rights, including civilian trials. That should be constitutional theory 101 for Americans. Yet, even this past week, the U.S. Senate is sanctioning the president of the United States having the right to detain American citizens indefinitely without trial.

When a body as august as the U.S. Senate is willing to pass a law that bars basic rights to Americans, it makes it easier for other law enforcement agencies to justify anti-constitutional behavior. We appreciate the job those who protect us do. It's a tough and stressful job. But we also have to remember where we live -- the United States of America.

For those who haven't been following the disturbing issues surrounding the Senate's knee jerk passage of Senate Bill 1867, here's the full lowdown from one of our online favorites, Alex Jones' InfoWars.Com:

• Senate Moves To Allow Military To Intern Americans Without Trial
• Yes, Americans Will Be Targeted As Terrorists Under the NDAA

Kudos to the Standard, which reminds us that we still live in the United States of America, although you might not recognise it as such, following Thursday's pro-totalitarian Senate vote.

And while we're on the topic, here's a Weber County Forum Tip O' The Hat to Utah's freshman Senator Mike Lee, one of three (and only three) GOP Senators who voted "nay" on this U.S. Constitution-gutting new federal legislation.

Update 12/5/11 7:34 a.m.: Here's a highly detailed analysis of AUMF2012 (SB1867) from former Constitutional and civil rights litigator Glenn Greenwald, who says:

If someone had said before September 11 that the Congress would be on the verge of enacting a bill to authorize military detention inside the U.S., it would be hard to believe. If someone had said after September 11 (or even after the 2006 and 2008 elections) that a Democratic-led Senate — more than ten years later, and without another successful attack on U.S. soil — would be mandating the indefinite continuation of Guantanamo and implementing an expanded AUMF, that, too, would have been hard to believe. But that’s exactly what Congress, with the active participation of both parties, is doing. And the most amazing part of it all is that it won’t change much, because that is more or less what Washington, without any statutory authorization, has already done. That’s how degraded our political culture is: what was once unthinkable now barely prompts any rational alarm — not because it’s not alarming, but because it’s become so normalized.

Read up:

• Congress endorsing military detention, a new AUMF