THE TEMPLE OF BABEL

RE:http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23231Volume 56, Number 17 November 5, 2009 Who's in Big Brother's Database?

By James Bradford

The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency

by Matthew M. Aid

Bloomsbury, 423 pp., $30.00

In the high desert of Utah the United States government 's agency NSA is building an enormous facility, costing and estimated $1.8 billion ( yes, that's billion) to record and store information gleaned from the electronic media, commonly called electronic eavesdropping. They have outgrown the existing facility at Ft. Mede, Maryland, particularly in terms of power usage .

The new home for secrets will double the physical space (over l million square feet) and use enough electric power as used by all of Salt Lake City. The site was chosen for it's remoteness and cheap and abundant electric power.

The NSA (National Security Agency) is charged with spying on foreign sources of

intelligence information--sounds like the CIA--, but has grown to 3 times the size of that famous intelligence agency. and since the Patriot Act has been granted the legal

right to spy on Americans to an unprecedented degree. The facility archives trillions of phone calls, e-mail messages, and data trails, web searches, parking receipts, bookstore visits, and other digital stuff. "The data are then analyzed by powerful infoweapons, supercomputers running complex algorithmic programs, to determine who among us may be—or may one day become—a terrorist. " or at least that is what they claim.

It is in fact an edifice, attesting to a government that is afraid of it's people. A government who has become increasingly paranoid about 'internal threats', and has taken to spying on it's people.

"One clue to the possible purpose of the highly secret megacenters comes from the agency's British partner, Government Communications Headquarters. Last year, the British government proposed the creation of an enormous government-run central database to store details on every phone call, e-mail, and Internet search made in the United Kingdom. Click a "send" key or push an "answer" button and the details of the communication end up, perhaps forever, in the government's data warehouse to be scrutinized and analyzed.

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

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 (San Antonio), 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."

As with most government programs, the NSA has flubbed their tasks of uncovering external threats.

They were unaware of the Russian build-up in Cuba in the 1960s.

They were unaware of India's nuclear test in 1998.

They were unaware of the 1963 attack on the World Trade Center.

They missed the attack on the USS Cole in 2000.

They were unaware of the bombing of the U.S. East African Embassies.

Sadly they also missed the 911 attack.

Nevertheless, as with most government programs their budget continues to increase as does the accumulation a of private information about us.

With Love and Kindness,

THE HATMAN