Privacy Concerns: Is Einstein Listening and Watching You?

The Obama administration will proceed with a Bush-era plan to use National Security Agency assistance in screening government computer traffic on private-sector networks, with AT&T as the likely test site, according to three current and former government officials.

— “We absolutely intend to use the technical resources, the substantial ones, that NSA has. But . . . they will be guided, led and in a sense directed by the people we have at the Department of Homeland Security,” the department’s secretary, Janet Napolitano, told reporters in a discussion about cybersecurity efforts.

… The program is the most controversial element of the $17 billion cybersecurity initiative the Bush administration started in January 2008. Einstein 3 is crucial, advocates say, in an era in which hackers have compromised computer systems at the Commerce and State departments and have taken military jet data from a defense contractor….“That’s the secret sauce,”...

The Baltimore Sun reported in 2006 that the operations at Fort Meade had maxed out the electric capacity of the Baltimore area’s power grid — and the NSA was then unable to install some new supercomputers for fear of blowing out the electrical infrastructure of the area. It will also require at least 65 megawatts of power — about the same amount used by every home in Salt Lake City combined. A separate power substation will have to be built at Camp Williams to sustain that demand, said Col. Scott Olson, the Utah National Guard’s legislative liaison. He noted that there were two significant power corridors that ran though Camp Williams — a chief factor in the NSA’s desire to build there...

There are several items in this article worth discussing.

First, NSA’s electrical consumption and trends have been legendary...and known for almost twenty years. No one makes much of a effort to gauge the problem or the real solution.

Then we come to why so much is required. Some folks believe that the secrecy has reached such a level that the left hand doesn’t know the right hand is doing. So there could be a HVAC system pumping cool air into a totally unused building...and no one knows it.

Some folks have questioned the necessity of keeping all of these power consumption projects there in the Maryland region. They could just as easily run a number of programs in other regions of the US. But again, the secrecy of the situation forbids intelligence discussion on this.

Finally, there are some folks who believe that duplication of effort is occurring on a massive scale....with various systems and HVAC requirements being completely wasted.

One almost gets the impression that the NSA guys want their very own nuclear reactor....to fix all the electrical concerns.

Clinton sent Echelon(sp) into effect to spy on English and Canadian citizens and England and Canada would spy on the citizens of USA since none of the above were allowed to spy on their own people. Now everyone is spying on our government, people and businesses.

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