NSA has two massive facilities, worth over $2.5 billion, millions of square feet, expanding to house data
The personal data and private online conversations that the National Security Administration is accused of mining could be stashed in a one million square-foot, $1.9 billion facility in the Utah Valley or the $860 million data center at Fort Meade, Maryland that will span more than 600,000 square feet, including 70,000 square feet of technical space.
Concerns over what the government will store at the Utah Data Center have been reinvigorated by the revelation that U.S. intelligence agencies have been extracting audio, video, photos, e-mails, documents and other information to track people’s movements and contacts.
Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Skype, AOL and the lesser known Internet company PalTalk are all involved with the PRISM program, which the government insists is for national security.
The Utah Data Center which is being constructed on Camp Williams on the Salt Lake-Utah County line will be completed in October.
Last month the NSA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began building the High Performance Computing Center-2, an NSA-run facility that will be located on base at Fort Meade, which is home to much of the agency’s existing data center operations. The data center will be supported by 60 megawatts of power capacity, and will use both air-cooled and liquid-cooled equipment.
Scheduled for completion in 2016, the center’s mission will be to protect national security networks and providing U.S. authorities with intelligence and warnings about cyber threats. The project is part of the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI), which the White House launched in 2008 to provide a unified approach to securing America’s digital infrastructure.
“With this new state-of-the-art computing center, Maryland and the NSA will continue to protect America from cyber terrorists, spies, and thugs,” said Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski of Maryland, Chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee and senior member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. “Maryland is the global epicenter of cybersecurity, leading the way in finding cyber-tech solutions that make our country safer, and creating cyber-warrior jobs that make our economy stronger.”
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2013/06/06/nsa-to-build-860-million-hpc-center-in-maryland/
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