NSA's Utah Data Center Suffers New Round Of Electrical Problems

Tech
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10/17/2013 @ 2:09PM

 


The NSA data center in Utah has had emergencies

The NSA’s Utah data center is still struggling to get up and running. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that the site slated to hold exabytes of NSA spy data has been suffering from lightning arcs and meltdowns that have destroyed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment and prevented the NSA from using the center for its intended purpose: massive data storage and mining. The WSJ reported there had been ten incidents thus far. A source familiar with the project says the center underwent yet another shutdown over the weekend after electrical problems on Thursday and Friday.

The data center was shut down through Tuesday. The source says there aren’t “arcs and fires anymore” but that the experts on the site still haven’t figured out what’s causing the problems. They have figured out how to prevent flashes of lightning, though.


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“They’re seeing a pattern of where it gets to the meltdown point and they stop it before it blows again,” says the source. The source says that contractors have been injured and taken to the hospital due to electrocution, but not in the most recent shutdown.

NSA spokesperson Vanee Vines provided a statement about the problems at the site that had previously been provided: “The failures that occurred during testing have been mitigated. A project of this magnitude requires stringent management, oversight, and testing before the government accepts any building.”

“As we’ve said, acceptance testing is underway,” she added.

The facility’s headaches are not limited to what’s happening inside the building. A protest group, Restore The Fourth, has adopted the highway in front of the data center.

“The group plans to carry picket signs as it picks up litter,” reports the Salt Lake Tribune. According to a Facebook event posting, the group is planning its first highway cleanup/mass surveillance protest on Saturday, October 26. With the electrical problems plaguing the billion-dollar data center, rendering it inoperable, the group might prefer protesting government waste rather than spying.


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