<story><title>Utah Considers Cutting Off Water to the NSA’s Monster Data Center</title><url>http://www.wired.com/2014/11/utah-considers-cutting-water-nsas-monster-data-center/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>optimusclimb</author><text>Possibly one of the most naive comments I&amp;#x27;ve ever seen on here.&lt;p&gt;We keep a military at the most basic level - so that another country can&amp;#x27;t send a boat full of troops over here, or airplanes filled with troops - invade us - and take over. In other words, basic protection against normal acts of war. Imagine if you, thizzbuzz, suddenly awoke tomorrow and found out the dictator of some small European country died, and you were the heir apparent. What would you want to have to make sure that Russia didn&amp;#x27;t just come in the next day with tanks and declare your country was now theirs? Oh - that would be a military.&lt;p&gt;So great, you&amp;#x27;ve made sure you have that. Now at the very least, if some other country violates your sovereignty, you can at least put up a fight, and it will be a visible spectacle to the rest of the world, which might come in and try and help you.&lt;p&gt;Next up - Inhabitants of your country speak one language. The rest of the world speaks other languages. If a newspaper in a neighboring country starts publishing articles calling for an invasion of your country, in a language most of your inhabitants don&amp;#x27;t speak...isn&amp;#x27;t that something you&amp;#x27;d like to be aware of? Who do you expect to be responsible for keeping tabs on that? Are you just going to hope that one of your citizens keeps tabs on it for you and drops you an email (at dictator@smalleurocountry.eu) to let you know you might want to be on the lookout for an invasion? Or would your citizens prefer your government is a little proactive about this? (assuming you&amp;#x27;re a benevolent dictator that wants to keep his country.) Sounds to me like you want some sort of government agency that keeps tabs on such things - you know, for NATIONAL SECURITY.&lt;p&gt;What you DON&amp;#x27;T want, if you have an American mindset, is for that agency to be spying on all of its native citizens. That doesn&amp;#x27;t mean you don&amp;#x27;t want such an agency to exist.</text></item><item><author>thizzbuzz</author><text>I am not convinced that the NSA has any purpose. What do you think is necessary about the NSA?</text></item><item><author>jsmthrowaway</author><text>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 &amp;quot;you can&amp;#x27;t have cool servers or toilets that flush.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;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 (that goes both ways, before you think I&amp;#x27;m attacking the right). The NSA committed grievous sin. I&amp;#x27;m as upset about it as you. Even so, it baffles me that we would be having this conversation about &lt;i&gt;water.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;God, stuff like this just depresses me. And that you love it, too. That depresses me as well. It&amp;#x27;s a cheap &amp;quot;rah rah go Utah sticking it to the man&amp;quot; puppet show that is ultimately meaningless, but you and many like you just eat it up.&lt;p&gt;--&lt;p&gt;Edit: Between this stupid &amp;quot;you&amp;#x27;re submitting too fast&amp;quot; barrier that I&amp;#x27;ve never seen until recently on a &amp;gt;year account, downvoting being blessed as okay to represent disagreement, graying comments as a result which silences disagreement and causes a dogpile effect, arbitrary shadowbans in 2014, and my critique of this political theater being interpreted as defense of the NSA or an advertisement that I need the condescension of having an intelligence agency explained to me (better: I&amp;#x27;m not going to answer your question but anybody that passed US History knows the answer), HN has done a pretty good job of silencing opposing thought. I asked a &lt;i&gt;question&lt;/i&gt; and it&amp;#x27;s barely legible. Even now, watching people Cmd+F my username and downvote every hit between refreshes. You sure showed me for not thinking like you!&lt;p&gt;Since I disagree with many things HN holds dear, and since the people and technology have made clear that&amp;#x27;s not welcome, after six years of contributing to Hacker News on various accounts, I&amp;#x27;m done. I can&amp;#x27;t take the technology nor the people any more.&lt;p&gt;It amazes me how hostile HN is now, both socially and technically, and yet people remain. The crowning irony is that people here complain about becoming Reddit, yet on some of the very lesser-known subreddits I&amp;#x27;ve had literally life-changing conversations. Here it&amp;#x27;s just bickering to see who is more right. Nothing of value comes of this thread, or the hundreds before it. Nothing. I want a refund of my time wasted here.</text></item><item><author>prbuckley</author><text>If every state stood up and passed bills like this the NSA couldnt have giant data centers in this country.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>vidarh</author><text>&amp;gt; The rest of the world speaks other languages. If a newspaper in a neighboring country starts publishing articles calling for an invasion of your country, in a language most of your inhabitants don&amp;#x27;t speak...isn&amp;#x27;t that something you&amp;#x27;d like to be aware of?&lt;p&gt;You do realise that you have a diplomatic corps with feet on the ground and people who speak the native languages in a substantial percentage of countries, right? And that e.g. CIA have analyst desks for handling exactly this type of thing?&lt;p&gt;What makes you think the NSA is needed for that? And even if they were, it&amp;#x27;d be something like %0.001 of their resources that&amp;#x27;d be needed for that.&lt;p&gt;The NSA&amp;#x27;s primary mission is sigint targeting non-public sources, as the CIA and DIA and other agencies are under substantial restrictions in terms of what sigint they are allowed to engage in without going through the NSA.</text></comment>
<story><title>Utah Considers Cutting Off Water to the NSA’s Monster Data Center</title><url>http://www.wired.com/2014/11/utah-considers-cutting-water-nsas-monster-data-center/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>optimusclimb</author><text>Possibly one of the most naive comments I&amp;#x27;ve ever seen on here.&lt;p&gt;We keep a military at the most basic level - so that another country can&amp;#x27;t send a boat full of troops over here, or airplanes filled with troops - invade us - and take over. In other words, basic protection against normal acts of war. Imagine if you, thizzbuzz, suddenly awoke tomorrow and found out the dictator of some small European country died, and you were the heir apparent. What would you want to have to make sure that Russia didn&amp;#x27;t just come in the next day with tanks and declare your country was now theirs? Oh - that would be a military.&lt;p&gt;So great, you&amp;#x27;ve made sure you have that. Now at the very least, if some other country violates your sovereignty, you can at least put up a fight, and it will be a visible spectacle to the rest of the world, which might come in and try and help you.&lt;p&gt;Next up - Inhabitants of your country speak one language. The rest of the world speaks other languages. If a newspaper in a neighboring country starts publishing articles calling for an invasion of your country, in a language most of your inhabitants don&amp;#x27;t speak...isn&amp;#x27;t that something you&amp;#x27;d like to be aware of? Who do you expect to be responsible for keeping tabs on that? Are you just going to hope that one of your citizens keeps tabs on it for you and drops you an email (at dictator@smalleurocountry.eu) to let you know you might want to be on the lookout for an invasion? Or would your citizens prefer your government is a little proactive about this? (assuming you&amp;#x27;re a benevolent dictator that wants to keep his country.) Sounds to me like you want some sort of government agency that keeps tabs on such things - you know, for NATIONAL SECURITY.&lt;p&gt;What you DON&amp;#x27;T want, if you have an American mindset, is for that agency to be spying on all of its native citizens. That doesn&amp;#x27;t mean you don&amp;#x27;t want such an agency to exist.</text></item><item><author>thizzbuzz</author><text>I am not convinced that the NSA has any purpose. What do you think is necessary about the NSA?</text></item><item><author>jsmthrowaway</author><text>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 &amp;quot;you can&amp;#x27;t have cool servers or toilets that flush.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;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 (that goes both ways, before you think I&amp;#x27;m attacking the right). The NSA committed grievous sin. I&amp;#x27;m as upset about it as you. Even so, it baffles me that we would be having this conversation about &lt;i&gt;water.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;God, stuff like this just depresses me. And that you love it, too. That depresses me as well. It&amp;#x27;s a cheap &amp;quot;rah rah go Utah sticking it to the man&amp;quot; puppet show that is ultimately meaningless, but you and many like you just eat it up.&lt;p&gt;--&lt;p&gt;Edit: Between this stupid &amp;quot;you&amp;#x27;re submitting too fast&amp;quot; barrier that I&amp;#x27;ve never seen until recently on a &amp;gt;year account, downvoting being blessed as okay to represent disagreement, graying comments as a result which silences disagreement and causes a dogpile effect, arbitrary shadowbans in 2014, and my critique of this political theater being interpreted as defense of the NSA or an advertisement that I need the condescension of having an intelligence agency explained to me (better: I&amp;#x27;m not going to answer your question but anybody that passed US History knows the answer), HN has done a pretty good job of silencing opposing thought. I asked a &lt;i&gt;question&lt;/i&gt; and it&amp;#x27;s barely legible. Even now, watching people Cmd+F my username and downvote every hit between refreshes. You sure showed me for not thinking like you!&lt;p&gt;Since I disagree with many things HN holds dear, and since the people and technology have made clear that&amp;#x27;s not welcome, after six years of contributing to Hacker News on various accounts, I&amp;#x27;m done. I can&amp;#x27;t take the technology nor the people any more.&lt;p&gt;It amazes me how hostile HN is now, both socially and technically, and yet people remain. The crowning irony is that people here complain about becoming Reddit, yet on some of the very lesser-known subreddits I&amp;#x27;ve had literally life-changing conversations. Here it&amp;#x27;s just bickering to see who is more right. Nothing of value comes of this thread, or the hundreds before it. Nothing. I want a refund of my time wasted here.</text></item><item><author>prbuckley</author><text>If every state stood up and passed bills like this the NSA couldnt have giant data centers in this country.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>optimusclimb</author><text>Since HN is not transparent about downvoting, other than that only certain users have the ability - I&amp;#x27;d love the feedback on the reasons for the down votes.&lt;p&gt;How a country could exist without an organization that pays attention to what the rest of the world is up to towards the goal of keeping itself &amp;quot;secure&amp;quot; is beyond me. What I wrote was a fictional circumstance which I thought explained to others how you&amp;#x27;d arrive at this conclusion - i.e. answering the question that was asked.</text></comment>