New NSA facility in Utah

NSA facility in Utah

It turns out the NSA power load was too much for Fort Meade, so they needed a new location.

You can find more on this HERE

Thanks,

reply to post by plexus


It probably makes more sense to have the thread under "bases" than breaking news, but with the cross reference, it really doesn't make much difference. I hope as the base gets built, somebody will photograph it. I would like to see if it has radomes or not.

Much of the "talk" in that thread can be found is James Bamford's "Shadow Factory." He has two other NSA books: "Puzzle Factory" and "Body of Secrets."

The NSA has a small museum at their Fort Meade facility.

Regarding Level 3, their facilities are found along route 93, the first leg of a trip towards Groom Lake. There are one or two sites by the road. The buildings are quite small and windowless. They just house comm gear, that it they are not manned.

Interesting, I was planning on trying to siphon as much information about this over the coming weeks as possible, I think this thread would be a good home for continual updates now that the media releases are over.

Good thinking. S&F

reply to post by plexus


As they build the facility, I assume requests for bids will show up on fbo.gov. For classified construction, the postings on fbo.gov often are very vague and you need to register to get more details. But much of this facility sounds very commonplace. SCIF construction for instance.

Digging through fbo.gov for something else, I came across the bid for the NSA facility. This link should get you there.
Utah data center

If not, the solicitation number is W912DR-10-R-0015.

Unfortunately, to get the details for the facility requires the user to log in. Drat!

reply to post by gariac


I've seen many question why James Bamford's seems to be the only one with info on the NSA, some say he is disinfo..
What do you think?

reply to post by backinblack


I think Bamford is the real thing. The problem is how do you dispute someone with knowledge that you can't verify. A friend met Banford a few years ago. He said that Bamford said it takes years to assemble the documents to write those books. You can't believe the useless crap you have to read in a FOIA to find something juicy.

I just did a FOIA with the FAA that took 3 months and a total dead end. In theory, you should be able to find Bamfords FOIA requests. You can FOIA to see what someone is FOIAing. The CIA publishes their FOIA requests online. I don't know about the NSA

If you read the Puzzle Palace and Body of Secrets, you probably noticed quite a bit of the Puzzle Palace was worked into Body of Secrets. The Puzzle Palace was strictly NSA and had more NSA detail than Body of Secrets, but Body of Secrets has astounding information such as Operation Northwoods.

The Shadow Factory covered more of the NSA from an outside contractor viewpoint, and also some of the off-site facilities. I think the Shadow Factory is where the MAID (massive array of idle disks) was mentioned. That is where they archive all the intel (well, so called intel since much is garbage) for later recovery.

If you think about it, photoint should be good intel. Sigint can be good if you tap the right sources. But the vacuum cleaner approach of tapping fiber optic lines must be full of useless data. Then the problem is even if you tap the write people, they speak in both a foreign language and code-words. The testimony in Shadow Factory of the personnel at the NSA facility in Georgia pretty much confirmed this.

I suspect this information will eventually fall into the infinite bit bucket, so here is the text of the construction contract. Well at least the part they are willing to publish.

The proposed procurement is Unrestricted. NAICS Code: 236220, Size Standard is $33,500,000.00. This procurement is being advertised as a Two Phase Request for Proposal (RFP). The magnitude of construction is greater than $500,000,000. The completion period is expected to be approximately 1,100 calendar days from notice to proceed. The bonding requirements for this solicitation has been set at $750,000,000. The project consists of the design and construction of a Tier III, 65 MW technical data center, located on Camp Williams, Utah. Basic ancillary supporting design and construction services include, but are not limited to: providing basic utility infrastructure, electrical service (primary power and temporary construction power), water, sewer, and gas. The facility itself will consist of approximately 1M SF of facility, of which 100K SF will be mission critical data center space with raised flooring and 900K SF of technical support and administrative space. Anci llary supporting facilities include, but are not limited to: water treatment facilities (pre and post), vehicle inspection facility, interim visitor control center, perimeter site security measures, fuel storage, water storage, chiller plant, fire suppression systems and 100% electrical generator and UPS back up capacity. The schedule will be very aggressive.

Originally posted by gariac
reply to post by backinblack

 

I think Bamford is the real thing. The problem is how do you dispute someone with knowledge that you can't verify. A friend met Banford a few years ago. He said that Bamford said it takes years to assemble the documents to write those books. You can't believe the useless crap you have to read in a FOIA to find something juicy.

I just did a FOIA with the FAA that took 3 months and a total dead end. In theory, you should be able to find Bamfords FOIA requests. You can FOIA to see what someone is FOIAing. The CIA publishes their FOIA requests online. I don't know about the NSA

If you read the Puzzle Palace and Body of Secrets, you probably noticed quite a bit of the Puzzle Palace was worked into Body of Secrets. The Puzzle Palace was strictly NSA and had more NSA detail than Body of Secrets, but Body of Secrets has astounding information such as Operation Northwoods.

The Shadow Factory covered more of the NSA from an outside contractor viewpoint, and also some of the off-site facilities. I think the Shadow Factory is where the MAID (massive array of idle disks) was mentioned. That is where they archive all the intel (well, so called intel since much is garbage) for later recovery.

If you think about it, photoint should be good intel. Sigint can be good if you tap the right sources. But the vacuum cleaner approach of tapping fiber optic lines must be full of useless data. Then the problem is even if you tap the write people, they speak in both a foreign language and code-words. The testimony in Shadow Factory of the personnel at the NSA facility in Georgia pretty much confirmed this.

Bamford is the real deal. I remember when Puzzle Palace came out. We were all directed to neither confirm nor deny anything in the book if we were asked about it. When i did read it, i thought it was a relatively dull read overall, factual and accurate, though dull. I thought Body of Secrets and Shadow Factory were much more interesting. Especially being on the contractor side of the house now, vice active duty.