Beam This Guy To Jail

Meet Keith Alexander. He’s the head of the National Security Agency (NSA) – the taxpayer-funded entity which is currently monitoring, saving and storing all of your digital communication as part of its Orwellian domestic spy program.

“Collect it all” is Alexander’s motto, and his agency is building a super-data storage facility in Utah which will do precisely that. He’s been described (most recently in this Foreign Policy article) as a “cowboy” who plays fast and loose with the constitution as part of his”all-out, barely-legal drive to build the ultimate spy machine.”

Prior to becoming America’s Snooper-In-Chief, Alexander was in charge of intelligence for the U.S. Army. In that role, he spent God only knows how many tax dollars on a spy center which he had Hollywood set experts model after Star Trek’s USS Enterprise.

“When he was running the Army’s Intelligence and Security Command, Alexander brought many of his future allies down to Fort Belvoir for a tour of his base of operations, a facility known as the Information Dominance Center,” the Foreign Policy report notes. “It had been designed by a Hollywood set designer to mimic the bridge of the starship Enterprise from Star Trek, complete with chrome panels, computer stations, a huge TV monitor on the forward wall, and doors that made a ‘whoosh’ sound when they slid open and closed. Lawmakers and other important officials took turns sitting in a leather ‘captain’s chair’ in the center of the room and watched as Alexander, a lover of science-fiction movies, showed off his data tools on the big screen.”

Reporter Glenn Greenwald of The (U.K.) Guardian has uncovered images of this “Information Dominance Center,” a 10,740-square foot facility which its designers boasted was “a highly classified, ultramodern operations center.”

“The futuristic, yet distinctly military, setting is further reinforced by the Commander’s console, which gives the illusion that one has boarded a star ship,” a brochure from the facility’s designers noted.

Take a look …

(Click to enlarge)

Pics: The (U.K.) Guardian

Greenwald’s conclusion?

“Any casual review of human history proves how deeply irrational it is to believe that powerful factions can be trusted to exercise vast surveillance power with little accountability or transparency,” he writes. “But the more they proudly flaunt their warped imperial hubris, the more irrational it becomes.”

Spock couldn’t have said it better himself …

Keith Alexander and his fellow domestic spies are spending billions of dollars each year on blatantly unconstitutional domestic surveillance – while their civilian bosses lie to the American people about what they are doing.

He should be in jail now … not blowing our money on Star Trek fantasies.