why would they need that much water anyways ?
It's not much water. If you have a field of corn 700m by 700m, it needs that much water to grow.
Utah Considers Cutting Off Water to the NSA’s Monster Data Center
51–60 of 99 posts
Re: Utah Considers Cutting Off Water to the NSA’s Monster Data Center
#52Meh, according to the article, NSA already has a water deal until 2021, which this bill is not attempting to change. I remember hearing about trying to cut off their water months ago; was an opportunity missed, or was it already too late then? How might they cut off the water sooner than 2021?
> How might they cut off the water sooner than 2021?
They won't. It's called "grandstanding". Welcome to politics.
Also, they second this is about to get real, the NSA announces the redundancy plans (easily 100s of "high tech economy jobs") and everyone runs screaming for the hills.
Re: Utah Considers Cutting Off Water to the NSA’s Monster Data Center
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
As shocking as it might be, the NSA has other things to do which actually are crucial for national security. Reforming the agency will go much further than basically saying "you can't have cool servers or toilets that flush." I know hating the NSA is en vogue but seriously. This is almost as bad as stonewalling and other hostilities toward other branches of government simply because the opposite party is in power (th…
Isn't this a semantic argument? There's really not much of a difference between "getting rid of the NSA" and "reforming the NSA by kicking out anyone in any way involved in the spying scandals and drastically overhauling the rules and oversight." Either way, you're getting rid of anything recognizable as the current NSA, and it doesn't really matter what you call the new agency that performs the legitimate tasks that…
Well, not really. You'd absolutely destroy the NSA's experience and domain knowledge, setting back its operational capabilities by a matter of decades and basically put the Russians and the Chinese in the driving seat. It's not a small organisation - these things take a lot of time to set up properly.
Re: Utah Considers Cutting Off Water to the NSA’s Monster Data Center
#54> “What’s noteworthy is no one on the panel said: ‘Hey, wait a minute, we can’t do this,'” he says. “They had some specific concerns about the language of the bill, but there was no outright opposition.”
That's pretty surprising given how incredibly conservative/Republican the state of Utah is. I'd be surprised if the bill passed (and if it was it would surely be caught up in litigation), but kudos to someone in such a conservative area recognizing that personal liberty is more important than security.
Re: Utah Considers Cutting Off Water to the NSA’s Monster Data Center
#55It's a nice thought, but it'll never happen. It'll be a 'matter of national security', supporters will be branded 'terrorists' or other such nonsense.
You don't even need that. Publishing the number of redundancies created by closing down the data centre is more than enough.
Re: Utah Considers Cutting Off Water to the NSA’s Monster Data Center
#56If every state stood up and passed bills like this the NSA couldnt have giant data centers in this country.
How is it that people are willing to believe the NSA/Federal government intercepts and archives the vast bulk of the world's electronics communication, but lacks the capability to sink a well and pull water out of the ground? Evn in the bizarre situation that this were true, the NSA could still have giant data centers in this country by the simple expedient of building them on ships. Sorry, but the comment above is p…
> but lacks the capability to sink a well and pull water out of the ground?
But they also have to dispose of the heated water. An ordinance preventing that would cause complications.
And if electricity supplies are withheld, they then have to spend more money installing generator plant and ( vetted ) personnel to operate that.
> the NSA could still have giant data centers in this country by the simple expedient of building them on ships.
Ships require victuals, fuel and connectivity. Ships are subject to inspection by maritime authorities, unless stationed in international waters - which an intelligence agency would never risk.
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All of this would require a request for expansion of the budget, or alternatively eat into the operational aspects of the current budget.
In the absence of any high-level political will to address the underlying issue, making routine operations difficult and expensive would seem to be the only practical approach.
Re: Utah Considers Cutting Off Water to the NSA’s Monster Data Center
#57IN 2021.
So even if they pass this next year, the NSA have six years to sue them and do whatever they like - i.e. ruin the lives of anyone who opposes them, and any legislators who voted in favour of this, and then maybe implant their own people, who'll vote that everyone from Utah is now an NSA-serf and must provide blood for cooling.
More effective would be a cunningly managed massive algal bloom upstream from their intakes, which would neatly clog all the things, and hopefully cause a large fire, localised entirely in their information nexus of doom.
Re: Utah Considers Cutting Off Water to the NSA’s Monster Data Center
#58why would they need that much water anyways ?
It's not much water. If you have a field of corn 700m by 700m, it needs that much water to grow.
But they're not growing corn. I mean what would the NSA need water for ? Drinking ? Can't they just ship bottled water ? Do they really have that much personnel there ?
Re: Utah Considers Cutting Off Water to the NSA’s Monster Data Center
#59If I were a UTAH politician pushing for this I would be very careful now,
You might just wake up one morning with a squad of armed policemen storming your house who will "find" child porn on your computer.
Re: Utah Considers Cutting Off Water to the NSA’s Monster Data Center
#60"refuse to support any federal agency". Interesting -- so local law enforcement can still collect data, which I think is what people want. A lot of the strangeness of technology we experience isn't that something can be done, it's that lots of things can be done at massive scale.