NSA's Massive Utah Datacenter Having Serious Electrical Problems: Has Already Had 10 Fiery Explosions

by Mike Masnick

It's no secret that government computing projects tend to be something of a boondoggle for government contractors. There are way too many stories of projects that are massively over-budget while never actually working. It's almost to be expected these days. Still, when it came to the NSA's infamous Utah data center they've been building over the past few years, you would have thought that maybe these guys would plan things out a little more carefully. While we can mock the NSA for the lies and misleading statements they make to the public, most people agree that they do have pretty damn good technical skills.

But, no, it appears that the Bluffdale data center is a complete mess. The data center, which was supposed to open up last month, has apparently been massively delayed due to major electrical problems -- and we're not just talking about some issues with not having enough power, but with setting stuff on fire:

According to the Wall Street Journal, the data center's electrical problems include "arc failures," a.k.a. "a flash of lightning inside a 2-foot box," which results in fiery explosions, melted metal and circuit failure. More terrifying, this has happened ten times, most recently on September 25, reports the WSJ, which reviewed project documents and reports and talked to contractors involved. The report blames the NSA "fast tracking" the Utah project and thus bypassing "regular quality controls in design and construction." Whoops.

Whoops indeed. Apparently the NSA was in such a rush to store all our data that it almost burned down its own data center. Good thing they're getting a tax break on all that electricity they're using.

Also, it appears that there's a fair bit of sniping going on, as some people claim they knew this was going to happen all along, while others say they have no idea why it's happening:

Worse, it sounds from the WSJ's reporting as if the contractors ? architectural firm KlingStubbins which designed the electrical system, along with construction companies Balfour Beatty Construction, DPR Construction and Big-D Construction Corp ? are still scrambling to figure out what's causing the problems. The Army Corps of Engineers sent its "Tiger Team" to sort things out this summer but they were unable to pinpoint exactly what's wrong.

"The problem, and we all know it, is that they put the appliances too close together," a person familiar with the database construction told FORBES, describing the arcs as creating "kill zones." "They used wiring that's not adequate to the task. We all talked about the fact that it wasn't going to work."

So, while the NSA has all sorts of code-breaking specialists, it appears that they're a bit understaffed on electrical engineers... Meanwhile, how long until peeved Iranian government officials pretend that they did this in response to the NSA creating Stuxnet to mess with their nuclear processing powers...

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AZ Cop Investigated For Having Allegedly Used Stun Gun On Stepson Over 'Unsatisfactory Report Card'

Follow @infolibnews!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src='//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,'script','twitter-wjs'); AZ board investigates ex-cop who reportedly used stun gun on stepson

MESA, AZ (CBS5) - Police said a Mesa officer lost his job because he used a stun gun on his stepson for bringing home an unsatisfactory report card. He worked for Mesa police for about six years. But some might argue he never should have been hired in the first place.

This story begins in 2002, when Larry Kelso applied to be a Phoenix police officer. According to a report from the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board, he admitted on the application to using marijuana 20 times, trying LSD once and using mushrooms three times. He didn't get the job. Then in 2005, when Kelso applied to the Mesa Police Department, he left out some of those details.

"He failed to disclose he had applied for other agencies and also he had changed his answers to be more accommodating," said Detective Steve Berry with the Mesa Police Department. Berry said Mesa police weren't aware of this until Kelso's wife at the time called police and told them in August 2011. A few days after that call, Mesa police got another call, this time from Kelso's stepson.

"He had allegedly used a Taser, a department-issued Taser, on his then-14-year-old son," Berry said. Kelso's stepson told police he had brought home a report card Kelso wasn't happy with. Police said Kelso then concocted a story to explain why he deployed his stun gun.

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Orwell, eat your heart out: 'TSA denies having required a 95-year-old woman to remove diaper'

Chris | InformationLiberation

Orwell must be rolling in his grave. The TSA has just come out and stated they didn't require the 95-yr-old dying leukemia patient to remove her diaper. Instead, they told the woman they had to inspect it or else she couldn't board her plane, a requirement by any other name. Amazingly, CNN basically uncritically reports the TSA's bull and titles their article to give the passerby the impression they presented some sort of evidence to the contrary of the woman's claims, when instead all they did was attempt to redefine the term require.

From CNN:

TSA denies having required a 95-year-old woman to remove diaper

(CNN) -- The Transportation Security Administration has denied that its agents required a 95-year-old woman to remove her adult diaper last week before allowing her to pass a screening checkpoint at Northwest Florida Regional Airport.

"While every person and item must be screened before entering the secure boarding area, TSA works with passengers to resolve security alarms in a respectful and sensitive manner," the agency said Sunday night in a statement. "We have reviewed the circumstances involving this screening and determined that our officers acted professionally, according to proper procedure and did not require this passenger to remove an adult diaper."

A response released earlier Sunday by the TSA said that the agency had reviewed the circumstances "and determined that our officers acted professionally and according to proper procedure."

The woman's daughter, Jean Weber, told CNN on Monday that the TSA agents acted professionally and never ordered the removal of her mother's diaper. However, Weber said the agents made it clear that her mother could not board the plane unless they were able to inspect the diaper.[...]

So we're supposed to believe that because they didn't explicitly order the woman to remove her diaper, but instead presented her with the ultimatum of 'remove it or she won't be allowed to fly,' that somehow changes everything. This woman is literally on her deathbed and these scumbags felt it "professional" and the procedure "proper" to demand she have her soiled undergarments inspected in order to fly to see her family before her death. This is the so-called "protection" the state provides us.

I'm reminded of this quote from Albert Jay Nock:

Once, I remember, I ran across the case of a boy who had been sentenced to prison, a poor, scared little brat, who had intended something no worse than mischief, and it turned out to be a crime. The judge said he disliked to sentence the lad; it seemed the wrong thing to do; but the law left him no option. I was struck by this. The judge, then, was doing something as an official that he would not dream of doing as a man; and he could do it without any sense of responsibility, or discomfort, simply because he was acting as an official and not as a man. On this principle of action, it seemed to me that one could commit almost any kind of crime without getting into trouble with one's conscience.

Clearly, a great crime had been committed against this boy; yet nobody who had had a hand in it ? the judge, the jury, the prosecutor, the complaining witness, the policemen and jailers ? felt any responsibility about it, because they were not acting as men, but as officials. Clearly, too, the public did not regard them as criminals, but rather as upright and conscientious men.

The idea came to me then, vaguely but unmistakably, that if the primary intention of government was not to abolish crime but merely to monopolize crime, no better device could be found for doing it than the inculcation of precisely this frame of mind in the officials and in the public; for the effect of this was to exempt both from any allegiance to those sanctions of humanity or decency which anyone of either class, acting as an individual, would have felt himself bound to respect ? nay, would have wished to respect. This idea was vague at the moment, as I say, and I did not work it out for some years, but I think I never quite lost track of it from that time.

- "Anarchist's Progress" in The American Mercury (1927); ? III : To Abolish Crime or to Monopolize It?

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I read once, that when animals become snared in traps, some will chew off their own limbs to free themselves. The same traps are set by our government. They can't justify their action with any sort of logic, but for some reason.... people feel compelled to chew off their own limbs.

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