Maryland Lawmakers push to cut electricity and water to the NSA's data center

USNews reports on Maryland lawmakers proposing a bill to cut electricity and water to the NSA.

This undated photo provided by the National Security Agency (NSA) shows its headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. The NSA has been secretly collecting the phone call records of millions of Americans, using data provided by telecom firms AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, the newspaper USA Today reported on May 11, 2006.

The National Security Agency is based in Fort Meade, Md., and is currently building a new computer center there that will be cooled with recycled wastewater from Howard County, Md.

By Feb. 10, 2014114 Comments SHARE

The National Security Agency’s headquarters in Ft. Meade, Md., will go dark if a cohort of Maryland lawmakers has its way.

Eight Republicans in the 141-member Maryland House of Delegates introduced legislation Thursday that would deny the electronic spy agency “material support, participation or assistance in any form” from the state, its political subdivisions or companies with state contracts.

The bill would deprive NSA facilities water and electricity carried over public utilities, ban the use of NSA-derived evidence in state courts and prevent state universities from partnering with the NSA on research.

If Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo and others had been found to support the NSA’s efforts I wonder if the bill would have looked to cut off the electricity and water to their data centers as well.

A lesson from Bitcoin to learn from, Technology is not independent of Politics

Many technology people have problems with the political system.  Just look at the problems that existed for how the politicians thought Obamacare should run, and the technical community’s view of the service.

Technology Review has a guest post by 

Simon Johnson is a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and was formerly chief economist of the International Monetary Fund.

Who discusses the problem for Bitcoin is the Politics.

Simon Johnson

February 7, 2014

Bitcoin’s Political Problem

If cryptocurrency is to succeed, its proponents need to acknowledge that it’s hard to divorce money from politics.

Money is always political. This is obvious enough when we argue about Federal Reserve policy in the United States, or who should next chair the interest rate-setting body. But for over 1,000 years, we have argued about the nature of our monetary systems and shifted between different ways of making payments. Seen in this historical context, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are just the latest in a long line of challenges to prevailing technology—and to current political arrangements.

The dominant design of today’s monetary systems is based on a western European tradition that can be traced back to the silver denarius of Emperor Charlemagne and before to the organization of the Roman Empire. This design bases the amount and nature of money in the economy on an interaction between government policy and what private individuals want to hold. Continual political pressure and repeated technological opportunity have produced many changes to that basic model over the years. Bitcoin’s rise may result in another round of that process.

Data Centers need to exist within a countries political system.  What happens in China and South America is different than how the USA and EU exist.  And, one of the biggest differences beside geography is the political system that exists in those countries.

What is the Threat to the CIO? Competition baby

I was reading this guest post on Forbes by Gartner research VP Peter Songaard.

Many CIOs Are Unprepared For The Next Era In Enterprise IT

Comment Now

By Peter Sondergaard

Gartner, Inc.

The next era of enterprise IT is upon us, but many CIOs are not prepared to manage the demands that come in this new era. We refer to this next era as the digitalization of IT, and it’s the beginning of the digital industrial economy.

According to Gartner’s annual CIO Agenda survey, the CIOs responded to say that they often feel overwhelmed by the prospect of building digital leadership while, at the same time, renovating the core of IT infrastructure and capability for the digital future. The survey found that 51 percent of CIOs are concerned that this change is coming faster than they can cope and 42 percent don’t feel that they have the talent needed to face this future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now one answer could be go to Gartner to be prepared for the changes.  Or the other way to look at this problem of being unprepared as Enterprise IT has competition. Check out this Dell Video with Safeway’s CIO Barry Libenson and PuppetLab’s Luke Kaines.

IT is Facing Competition for the First Time Ever

Do the CIOs realize that they are now competing for IT services?

Imagine if Google put a data center in Hangar One at Moffett Field (humor)

Mercury news covers a Google subsidiary taking over the maintenance of Hangar One at Moffett Field.

Google to restore Hangar One and operate runways at Moffett Field

By Brandon Bailey

bbailey@mercurynews.com

POSTED:   02/10/2014 07:42:48 PM PST | UPDATED:   ABOUT 9 HOURS AGO

 

Hangar One at Moffett Field, 2011.
Hangar One at Moffett Field, 2011. (Mercury News)

MOUNTAIN VIEW -- After designing driverless cars, experimenting with robots and secretly building a fleet of barges, Google is taking on a new challenge: running an airfield in the heart of Silicon Valley and restoring one of the area's most iconic buildings, once used to house Navy blimps.

Imagine what kind of data center Google put in the hangar.  The super structure looks like it could be the basis for a new rack system.  :-)
 
Google's plans for the Moffett airfield are unclear, although the agreement could allow limited commercial development, or possibly a museum or education center at the hangar site. The company declined to comment, saying only that it wants to "preserve the heritage of Moffett Federal Airfield."