NSA Doesn’t Want to Reveal Water Bills, Cites National Security

While Americans are invariably subject to prying eyes, the
National Security Agency (NSA) is holding in as many secrets as
possible post-Snowden. When asked for information about the NSA
Utah data center, authorities replied
with documents, but redacted the water bill amount.

According to Wired,
the official argument “requires a pretty big leap of logic”:

“By computing the water usage rate, one could
ultimately determine the computing power and capabilities of the
Utah Data Center,” wrote the NSA’s associate director for policy
and records, David Sherman, in an undated letter filed with
Bluffdale in response to the Tribune’s public records request.
“Armed with this information, one could then deduce how much
intelligence NSA is collecting and maintaining.”

The State Records Committee, the state panel tasked with
overseeing open records laws, was not convinced. Yesterday, it

ruled 5-0 in favor of ordering Bluffdale, the city that
supplies the NSA with water, to release the information.

Water consumption is peculiarly significant issue in the state
of Utah. “We’re just in the habit of accounting for water in this
state because we have to. There’s just not enough water,” Nate
Carlisle, the Tribune reporter that filed the initial
information request, told
Wired. The OffNow campaign has been fighting tooth and
nail to turn off the NSA’s water.
State rep. Marc Roberts
introduced a bill in February to discontinue the flow of water
to the massive data facility.

As far as plans to tame government snoops go, this is eccentric
approach. But the huge data center, estimated to hold exabytes of
data, swallows, perhaps,
a million gallons of water a day to cool down the
surveillance-data-holding computers and equipment.

Coincidentally, the Associated Press released a

study on federal handling of open records requests. They found
that mismanagement of Freedom of Information Act requests is on an
upward swing. The Obama administration cites national security as
grounds to reject a request more than under any other
administration ever.

Carlisle expects the records to be released within the week.
Wired is less
confident, “Don’t expect the NSA to give up its water numbers
without a fight.”