The National Security Agency published a notice today describing its Power Upgrades Project, which is intended to meet the Agency’s growing demand for electrical power and to replace aging electrical infrastructure.
“The proposed utility upgrades would allow for 100 percent self-contained redundancy, should off-site power sources fail,” according to the January 2 Federal Register notice.
“The demand for electricity to operate its expanding intelligence systems has left the high-tech eavesdropping agency on the verge of exceeding its power supply,” reported Siobhan Gorman in the Baltimore Sun on August 6, 2006.
The human cost is measured in deaths. The financial cost is measured in the $52 billion taxpayers pay annually end stage renal disease – double NASA’s budget.
Gilman Louie, Longest Serving Board Chair of the Federation of American Scientists, Named Chair Emeritus
The proposed Office will resurrect the long-closed Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), the archive of which has been maintained by FAS for decades at https://ota.fas.org/.
If Congress needs help understanding the risks and rewards of a piece of technology, they shouldn’t have to rely solely on the sparknotes from a salesman. The rub is much simpler: Congress needs nerds.