By Connor Boyack
"Concealed within his fortress, the lord of Mordor sees all. His gaze pierces cloud, shadow, earth, and flesh."
— "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring"
Like the eye of Sauron, the NSA’s new facility
in Utah overlooks hundreds of thousands of people in the valley below.
Perched on a mountainside fortress of concrete and barricades, the
1-million-square-foot complex exists solely to allow the NSA to "see
all."
In the wake of the Snowden leaks and widespread
concern with the pervasive surveillance activities of the federal
government, many Americans have been wondering how to fight back. Can an
effective opposition even be mounted against the power of the NSA? What
can be done to restore privacy and protect our rights?
The strategy to succeed is quite simple. When
fully operational, the NSA facility is expected to require a staggering
1.7 million gallons of water every day to cool down the computers
harvesting information on people worldwide. That water is supplied by
the Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District, a political subdivision of
the state. Without it, the facility cannot function.
To defeat Sauron, Frodo had to take the One
Ring and throw it into the pit of Mount Doom — the dark lord’s power
base at the heart of Mordor — where it was originally forged. To defeat
the NSA, we must also take the fight to the base of operations and turn
off the water supply.
In 2006, the NSA faced major challenges at its
facility at Fort Meade, Md. The energy consumption required by the
computers at that complex maxed out the electric capacity of the
Baltimore area power grid. The NSA, as Baltimore Gas & Electric’s
largest customer, was using as much power as the entire city of
Annapolis. Unable to use some of their costly and sophisticated new
equipment, the agency knew it needed to look elsewhere.
Cheap resources therefore became a primary
consideration for the NSA as they considered new locations. Utah’s
inexpensive power and water were quite attractive to government
officials, and the decision was made to build a new facility—seven times
larger than the Pentagon—in Bluffdale, beating 38 other contenders.
Harvey Davis, NSA director of installations and
logistics, affirmed that the low utility costs were a key factor. "Utah
is a wonderful place with abundant and inexpensive power," he said.
"Plenty of sources of water for cooling. Utah, because of the facility
and the utilities, just came out far and ahead of everywhere else," he
said.
Currently, Utahns are aiding and abetting the
NSA’s invasive surveillance activities by supplying the agency with the
resources it needs to operate. Without power and water, the NSA cannot
spy on Americans.
When Edward Snowden forced transparency upon
the NSA, his greatest fear was that "nothing will change." He continued:
"People will see in the media all of these disclosures. They’ll know
the lengths that the government is going to grant themselves powers
unilaterally to create greater control over American society and global
society. But they won’t be willing to take the risks necessary to stand
up and fight to change things to force their representatives to actually
take a stand in their interests."
Congress must statutorily restrain the NSA, and
the courts should protect "the right of the people to be secure in
their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
searches," as the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states.
Unless and until substantive reform is made at the federal level, states
in which NSA facilities are located should refuse to be made complicit
in the agency’s activities.
Connor Boyack is president of Libertas Institute.
