Nation's Biggest Spy Center Settles into Utah

By David Wallechinsky and Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Utah - Officially called the Utah Data Center, the enormous facility under construction will eventually house one million square feet of computers. Its mission will be to intercept, decipher, analyze and store large volumes of communications collected by the NSA from around the world.

 

Everything from private emails to cell phone calls to Google searches and more will be stored at the center, which is scheduled to operational in September 2013. It will also collect the details of financial transactions, big and small, secret communication of foreign governments, suspected terrorists and, perhaps, just about everybody else.

 

“It is, in some measure, the realization of the ‘total information awareness’ program created during the first term of the Bush administration—an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans’ privacy,” according to James Bamford in an excellent article in Wired. Bush went ahead anyway, enlisting the aid of the telecoms, and the Obama administration has moved the strategy forward.

 

The Utah Data Center will also be a center for cryptanalysis—code breaking—since one of its primary targets will be password-protected and intricately encrypted information.

 

The Data Center is expected to have at least 200 full-time employees and cost $40 million a year to maintain.

Odd Stories: Utah Boy, 9, Takes 5-year-old Sister on Joyride

By Brian Skoloff

Ogden, Utah - An 8-year-old Utah boy made sure he and his 5-year-old sister buckled up before heading out on a middle-of-the-night drive in their mother's minivan, but they didn't get far.

The boy, who couldn't even see above the steering wheel, made it just a few hundred feet before crashing the vehicle into a line of trees along the Ogden River, about 40 miles north of Salt Lake City.

No one was injured and the children were returned to a stunned mother who awoke to police officers in her apartment at about 2 a.m. Thursday, authorities said.

"They had just come out of the driveway, went across both lanes, then hit those trees," said Ogden police Lt. Danielle Croyle. "It could have been much worse if they didn't have their seatbelts on. They were just too smart for their own good."

Authorities didn't identify the mother, and she did not answer her door on Thursday. No telephone number was listed for her.

Croyle said police have no previous history with the woman or her children, and neglect was not an issue. She called it an accident and said no charges were pending.

Witnesses said it was a shock.

"It was crazy," said Justine McDonald, 18, who heard the crash and ran outside with a friend to help.

"They looked a little freaked out. The kids just kept saying they were happy to be alive," McDonald said. "I said, 'Where's your mommy and daddy? Are they still in the car?' But she was at home asleep."

The young boy told Ogden police that his sister wanted to go to the store, so he grabbed the keys and headed out with his mother asleep in another room.

Several witnesses called 911 to report the crash.

"This kid wasn't even tall enough to see above the steering wheel," said neighbor Holly Maxwell, who also ran across the street to help. "They were worried their mother was going to be mad at them."

The 25-year-old said she held the little girl's hand and walked with police back to their apartment, along with McDonald.

An officer knocked repeatedly on the woman's door, then walked in, McDonald said.

"He called her name like four or five times," she said.

The woman eventually walked out from a back room.

"Did you know your kids took a joyride in your car?" McDonald said the officer asked the mother. "She just rubbed her head."

Wisconsin to Ban Some Abortion Coverage, Re-focus Sex-education

Wisconsin - Wisconsin lawmakers have approved controversial measures to block the state's new health insurance exchange from covering abortions and require sex education classes to emphasize abstinence as the preferred method of birth control.


Both bills, which were voted through the Republican-controlled Assembly by 61-34 late Tuesday, now head to the desk of Republican Governor Scott Walker, who is widely expected to sign them.

The laws ban private insurers from offering abortion coverage in the plans they offer through the state-run exchange where thousands of Wisconsin residents will buy subsidized coverage under President Obama's healthcare overhaul.

Two Democrats, Peggy Krusick and Tony Staskunas, and one independent, Bob Ziegelbauer, joined Republicans in supporting the abortion bill, which opponents said would necessarily impair women's health by limiting access to abortions for those who require them.

A handful of Democratic representatives wore Planned Parenthood T-shirts as they voted unsuccessfully against the measure.

Also late Tuesday, the Assembly passed a bill that repeals the so-called "Healthy Youth Act" passed last session by Democrats that provided "comprehensive sex education."

Once Walker signs the measure, it will require schools that offer a human development and growth curriculum to emphasize abstinence as the preferred method of birth control and emphasize the role and "socioeconomic benefits" of marriage.

The measure would also remove information on contraceptive methods approved by the Food and Drug Administration from the required curriculum.

Democrats argued the bill would neglect science-based teaching and put children at risk from sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancy.

Last week, lawmakers in Utah passed a measure that would ban public schools from teaching contraception as a way of preventing pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases.

Supporters of the measure in both Utah and Wisconsin argued that sex education was best left up to parents.

Energy Expert Calls MidAmerican Nuclear Plant "Bad Idea"

By  Jillian Petrus

Iowa City, Iowa - Dr. Arjun Makhijani, President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Takoma Park, Maryland is a world renowned energy expert.

On Sunday, Eastern Iowans had the unique opportunity to hear Dr. Makhijani speak about his concerns over small nuclear reactor proliferation in the Midwest.

“Nuclear reactors are risky and expensive,” Makhijani says, “I do not believe the small reactors that are produced are going to alleviate this problem. I think there’s more hype than substance to that.”

At the Iowa City Public Library, a group of about 30 people listened to Makhijani talk about the dangers of nuclear energy on the one year anniversary of Japan’s Fukushima disaster. Dr. Makhijani expressed a strong opinion that the United States is not putting enough emphasis on testing our own reactors against similar situations. He says people living in the Midwest, particularly Iowans, can grow safer alternative energy methods.

“There’s more wind energy in the Midwestern belt of the country than all the oil production of all the oil exporting countries put together.”

Makhijani has conducted studies in Utah, Nebraska and Minnesota looking at how wind energy can be grown as a major energy source while maintaining cost efficiency. He says, based on his findings, it is possible.

He also addressed the issue of a bill currently in the Iowa senate. It proposes a rate increase for MidAmerican Energy users. The energy company says the additional money generated by the increase would go toward building another nuclear plant. Makhijani calls this plan a “particularly bad idea”.

“The way it is financed, basically, is pay in advance without even a guarantee that it will be delivered.”

Iowa lawmakers could take action this week on the bill, but some are still questioning, like Makhijani, if the measure would hurt customers and distract from the growth of alternative energy possibilities in Iowa.

Odd Stories: Utah Mom Gives Birth to Her Third Leap Day Baby

Provo, Utah - A Utah couple may want to start buying lottery tickets after they beat astronomical odds to have their third consecutive Leap Day baby earlier this week.

David and Louise Estes are believed to be just the second family to have three babies born on Feb. 29, reports the Provo Daily Herald.

Xavier, their eldest of five children, was born on Leap Day 2004. Remington came along exactly four years later. And Jade was born this past Wednesday.

David thought it would be "cool" if they could time Jade's birth, the report said, but in fact, she was due Feb. 24. Louise was induced, as she has been with all of her previous pregnancies.

Although three of their children were born on Leap Day, the couple tries to make sure each child has their own special celebration, David told the paper.

The Henriksen family of Norway is the only other family on record with three children born on consecutive Leap Days — in 1960, 1964 and 1968. The odds are said to be less than one in a billion.

There are no plans yet to attempt a fourth Leap Day baby for the Estes family, but, David said, "You never know..."

Utah Doctors Join "Occupy" Movement by Brian Moench

Utah's Bingham Canyon mine

Utah - Taking inspiration from the Occupy Movement, last week a group of doctors and environmental groups in Salt Lake City, Utah announced a law suit against the third largest mining corporation in the world, Rio Tinto, for violating the Clean Air Act in Utah. This is likely the first time ever that physicians have sued industry for harming public health.

Air pollution causes between 1,000 and 2,000 premature deaths every year in Utah. Moreover, medical research in the last ten years has firmly established that air pollution causes the same broad array of diseases well known to result from first and second hand cigarette smoke--strokes, heart attacks, high blood pressure, virtually every kind of lung disease, neurologic diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, loss of intelligence, chromosomal damage, higher rates of diabetes, obesity, adverse birth outcomes and various cancers such as lung cancer, breast cancer and leukemia.


Most of Utah’s cities are in violation of many of the EPA's national air quality standards, and for several days during a typical winter Utah is plagued by the worst air pollution in the country. The American Lung Association routinely gives Utah’s largest cities an “F” for our air quality. Last February, Forbes magazine, hardly a cheerleader for excessive environmental protection, rated Salt Lake City as the nineth most toxic city in the country, and the biggest contributor to that ranking was the mining and smelting operations at the Bingham Canyon mine, run by London-based mining conglomerate Rio Tinto/Kennecott (RTK).

This mine is the world’s largest man made excavation and has created the largest mining related water pollution problem in the world. The mine is located on the western doorstep of Salt Lake City, home to well over one million people. There is no comparable juxtaposition of an enormous mining operation this close to such a large urban center. RTK's mine and smelter operations account for 30% of the particulate matter emitted into the atmosphere over Salt Lake County, making it by far the largest source of industrial pollution in the urban areas of Utah.

The smelting operations and fugitive dust from the 1,100 foot high waste rock piles and tailings ponds are a constant source of highly toxic heavy metal contamination--lead, mercury, arsenic, and cadmium-- to the air, water, and soil of Utah’s largest city. The mining industry watchdog, Earthworks, states that before the most recently approved expansion, RTK was releasing 695 million pounds of toxic material into the Salt Lake City environment every year. Because heavy metals do not degrade, are not combustible and cannot be destroyed, that heavy metal toxic burden steadily increases year after year, as it has for over 100 years.

Despite this extreme burden on public health, predictably, the Utah Division of Air Quality recently issued a permit for RTK to expand their operations by 32% which will make their pollution emissions even worse.
RTK is making record profits--$15 billion last year. In August Chairman of the Board, Jan du Plessis bragged, “Rio Tinto has produced another set of record breaking results.” du Plesses apparently specializes in delivering pollution, he is also chairman of the Board of British American Tobacco. Tom Albanese, Rio Tinto’s CEO who made almost $8.5 million in compensation last year, recently lamented, “[Rio Tinto must do] a better job at managing the curse of resource nationalism... and the activism of stakeholder engagement.” Let me translate that for you: local people throughout the world are tired of being exploited for profit, they're starting to stand up for themselves, and Rio Tinto doesn't like it. Utah citizens tired of RTK’s pollution would be considered part of that “curse” to Rio Tinto executives.

This issue is simple: RTK can well afford to clean up, but they won’t, and no one is making them. Their contribution to our pollution is hurting all the residents of Salt Lake City and adding to the premature death total mentioned above. For environmental and public health advocates, RTK pursuing and receiving an approval to expand was “the last straw.”

If the core tenet of the Occupy Movement is that corporations and the 1% manipulate every level of government to serve their profit driven agendas and simultaneously disregard, if not openly undermine, the interests of the 99%, then there is no better example than RTK’s operation of Utah’s Bingham Canyon mine.
UPHE estimates that the mortality, health and environmental costs to the community from RTK pollution is between $2 billion and $4 billion, several times the value of the wages and taxes that they pay. Nonetheless, a massive PR budget allows RTK to heavily advertise themselves as “job providers”, and take virtually no responsibility for the various environmental and health consequences of their operations.

Frederick Douglass, the19th century civil rights leader, said,"Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them." Let it be known that the people in Utah will no longer “quietly submit” to more pollution, more deaths, shortened life spans and poorer health to fatten the wallets in the London board room of Rio Tinto. We are going to “take back” the air we breathe

Odd Stories: Man Jumps Off Radio Tower

Fairfax/Crownsville, MD - In another show of stupidity, unpreparedness, or most likely both, Virginia man Robert Scott Morgan's jump off a radio tower didn't exactly turn out like he and his friend planned it.

Along with Sean Michael Bullington, from Draper, Utah, Morgan sneaked onto private property. Morgan was equipped with a parachute and took the leap off the structure. Unfortunately for him it didn't open all the way and he hit the ground, causing him to injure unmentioned parts of his lower body. While at the hospital as a precautionary measure he was cited for trespassing. Bullington, his accomplice, was cited for trespassing as well as providing a false statement to police.

I don't think the police should've charged Robert Morgan. The knowledge he could've died should be enough for him.