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11/02/09
We might as well go ahead and assume this is wrong then. Every Federal Government estimate, on the size of things, is either to conservative, or just way off period.
And I just want to say, I think this is a great idea. Centralize the information, put it all in one location. This way all the super hackers that exist out there in the world will have an easier time of mining data on people in the US and stealing identity's and causing havoc.
Yay go federal government! you guys are just soooo brilliant..
You know, I normally always laughed at the people who mention the big brother stuff. But when shit like this is being built, well guess I gotta at least give those people a bit of credit.
"But when the plans were released by the UK government, there was an immediate outcry from both the press and the public, leading to the scrapping of the "big brother database," as it was called. In its place, however, the government came up with a new plan. Instead of one vast, centralized database, the telecom companies and Internet service providers would be required to maintain records of all details about people's phone, e-mail, and Web-browsing habits for a year and to permit the government access to them when asked. That has led again to public anger and to a protest by the London Internet Exchange, which represents more than 330 telecommunications firms. "We view...the volume of data the government now proposes [we] should collect and retain will be unprecedented, as is the overall level of intrusion into the privacy of citizenry," the group said in August.[2]
Unlike the British government, which, to its great credit, allowed public debate on the idea of a central data bank, the NSA obtained the full cooperation of much of the American telecom industry in utmost secrecy after September 11. For example, the agency built secret rooms in AT&T's major switching facilities where duplicate copies of all data are diverted, screened for key names and words by computers, and then transmitted on to the agency for analysis. Thus, these new centers in Utah, Texas, and possibly elsewhere will likely become the centralized repositories for the data intercepted by the NSA in America's version of the "big brother database" rejected by the British."
Damn our government is worse than British Government in that sense... at least let the public pretend we have an option.
There honestly something wrong about this WHOLE situation. I can't place my finger on it. But there really is.
"here does all this leave us? Aid concludes that the biggest problem facing the agency is not the fact that it's drowning in untranslated, indecipherable, and mostly unusable data, problems that the troubled new modernization plan, Turbulence, is supposed to eventually fix. "These problems may, in fact, be the tip of the iceberg," he writes. Instead, what the agency needs most, Aid says, is more power. But the type of power to which he is referring is the kind that comes from electrical substations, not statutes. "As strange as it may sound," he writes, "one of the most urgent problems facing NSA is a severe shortage of electrical power." With supercomputers measured by the acre and estimated $70 million annual electricity bills for its headquarters, the agency has begun browning out, which is the reason for locating its new data centers in Utah and Texas. And as it pleads for more money to construct newer and bigger power generators, Aid notes, Congress is balking.
The issue is critical because at the NSA, electrical power is political power. In its top-secret world, the coin of the realm is the kilowatt. More electrical power ensures bigger data centers. Bigger data centers, in turn, generate a need for more access to phone calls and e-mail and, conversely, less privacy. The more data that comes in, the more reports flow out. And the more reports that flow out, the more political power for the agency.
Rather than give the NSA more money for more power—electrical and political—some have instead suggested just pulling the plug. "NSA can point to things they have obtained that have been useful," Aid quotes former senior State Department official Herbert Levin, a longtime customer of the agency, "but whether they're worth the billions that are spent, is a genuine question in my mind."
Based on the NSA's history of often being on the wrong end of a surprise and a tendency to mistakenly get the country into, rather than out of, wars, it seems to have a rather disastrous cost-benefit ratio. Were it a corporation, it would likely have gone belly-up years ago. The September 11 attacks are a case in point. For more than a year and a half the NSA was eavesdropping on two of the lead hijackers, knowing they had been sent by bin Laden, while they were in the US preparing for the attacks. The terrorists even chose as their command center a motel in Laurel, Maryland, almost within eyesight of the director's office. Yet the agency never once sought an easy-to-obtain FISA warrant to pinpoint their locations, or even informed the CIA or FBI of their presence."
Interesting... I'm thinking this is a bad investment.
I read once, that what we really need is "more feet pounding the streets" or something like that, some guy from the CIA said this I believe, when referring to what happened on 911.
Basically people are needed in the field.
They have enough Desk Jockeys already.
Anyways, interesting, yet depressing article.
I am also going to buy that book in the article eventually. Sounds like it would be worth checking out.
11/02/09
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11/02/09
"The [surveillance] harms consist of those created by bureaucracies—indifference, errors, abuses, frustration, and lack of transparency and accountability." (Solove p. 766)
Source: [papers.ssrn.com] #yottabyte
11/02/09
11/02/09
...but if they can, lets just hope it's not solid state, I don't think the flash memory market can support both the American Government AND Apple at the same time. #yottabyte
11/02/09
Keep those presses going, Federal Reserve Cartel! #yottabyte
11/02/09
Does anyone really believe this is going to make like safer for America? Is anyone really THAT stupid and that afraid?
Your odds of being killed in a car accident by a drunk driver are exponentially higher than being killed in a Terrorist attack. The odds of being killed by cancer are exponentially higher than that. How about we put the money into cancer research?
11/02/09
11/02/09
i love how people are so paranoid about the government watching you.... the government cant even keep the roads free of potholes, or keep the bay bridge from falling apart. im more concerned about them having an incompetent waste of resources, rather than them watching what i do all day. #yottabyte
11/02/09
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11/02/09
I like my privacy and I don't think everyone needs to know everything about everyone.
I believe people have a right to privacy. If someone doesnt want their whole life recorded and displayed for all to see they should have the right to keep it private.
On a side note though I'd say most of us live pretty mundane lives and for the most part I dont think anyone cares what others are doing as long as they keep their weird little lives to themselves. Ami-right? #yottabyte
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