c-span's congress at directly is a complete guide to the 112th congress, with detailed information about every congressman, cabinet member, supreme court justice and governor, it's available for 12:95 plus shipping and handling. you can order your copy at c-span.org/shop. on thursday, defense secretary leon panetta will give an update on syria's human rights situation. he'll be joined at the house armed services committee by joint chiefs of staff chairman martin dempsey. you can watch live coverage beginning at 10:00 a.m. eastern time here on c-span3. this weekend on book tv on c-span2, live coverage from the los angeles times festival of

books. coverage starts at 2:00 p.m. eastern saturday and sunday. saturday at 3:30 p.m. biographers jim ferrell on dwight d. eisenhower and jfk. and at 7:30, how movie stars shaped american politics. sunday at 2:00 eastern, watch for eric alter man and his take on liberals in the cause. and at 5:00, a panel on surveillance and secrets with laurie andrews, annie jacobsen and laurie shermer. the entire schedule is online at booktv.org. this month, wired magazine includes a cover story abouted construction a $2 billion computer spy center in utah for the national security agency. this heavily fortified center would be used to intercept store and analyze communication from around the world. we talk about the articles author on wednesday's washington

journal. as part our spot line on magazine theorys, we're talking today about the recent cover issue of wired magazine about the national security agency building a new and -- the countries biggest center. the author is joining us, he's the author of several books on the nsa. we've been following the nsa for many years now. what is the utah data center? >> well, it's an enormous warehouse, basically, where nsa's going to keep all of its intercepts, all its communication that's intercepted whether phone calls, e-mails, or tweets, whatever kind of communications it picks up it has a place to store them and then will serve as what's known as a cloud. in other words, agency listening post and headquarters from different parts of country will be able to tap into that communications that are stored there and analyze it.

so it's a big storage center for intercepted communications. >> why? why is this necessary? >> well, because nsa intercepts huge amounts of communications from all over the world, and you know, you've got a lot of communications you've got to have some place to put it. that's why they built utah. the bluffdale data center. >> how does this tie in with what is the role or responsibility of the nsa? >> well, that's what nsa's job is. basically three jobs. one is intercepting communications. the other is breaking codes, and the third is making codes for the u.s. so in order to break the code, you've got to intercept the communications, and that's what nsa's been doing since 1952 is putting satellites in space. ground stations. listening posts, and communications facilities like at&t, and sifting through all of this data. whether it's a phone call or an e-mail. looking for whatever targets are looking for.

>> of foreign nationals? >> looking for whatever targets. i mean, senator ted kennedy was a target for a while. he was on the watch list. couldn't get on airplanes without being frisked. anybody can be a target in the united states. up to a million people on the watch list, and a lot them are innocent people, a lot of them are there by mistake. a lot them are there because they said the wrong word at the wrong time or were in the wrong place at the wrong time. and it has nothing to do with terrorism. >> history about the nsa. established by president truman on november 4, 1952, created to conduct post-war era code breaking as james bamford said. two missions, gather adversary secrets and protect u.s. national security info. on the missions, gather adversaries secrets. you write, in the lead graph, on the cover of this magazine, that american citizens need to be watching what they're saying. are they spying on americans? >> certainly. that was the whole controversy over the warrantless ease dropping program under president bush, was eavesdropping on americans.

the interstate was formed like the marines or other organizations that are formed for foreign wars, was formed to eavesdrop outside the united states. marines aren't used to, you know, police the streets of the united states. and the nsa wasn't used to police the electronic environment of the united states. eavesdrop on u.s. citizens. it was designed to eavesdrop on foreign countries, foreign governments and foreign people. so this is a big change. nsa switching to eavesdrop on americans. it was -- it did that in the nixon administration. it violated the law back then. it violated the law when it was first created. for 30 years it eavesdropped illegally on u.s. communications until discovered in 1975. so it has a history of eavesdropping illegally on u.s. citizens, and then lying about it. saying that we aren't doing it when in reality they are doing it. >> are you saying, according to your sources, this utah data

center they're building, won't be ready until 2013, what they're going to be doing, getting people's google searches, e-mails, telephone calls, et cetera, that that's illegal? >> well, there's a law called the foreign intelligence surveillance amendments act, and that determines what's legal and illegal. but nsa has its own internal guidelines on what it can do, which is top secret it so is the definition of words, is up as intercept. it's not the webster's dictionary definition. their definition of intercept, pull all of this information in, but it's not technically intercepted until you actually live to it. so there's a problem of definitions. there's a problem of truth telling a lot of times with nsa. and there's a problem of, the capability to intercept so much information at all times. >> the nsa chief was asked about your story specifically. and what you wrote, and on the issue of american citizens. i want to show that moment in a congressional hearing just last

month. >> does the nsa routinely intercept american citizens' e-mails? >> no. >> does the nsa intercept americans' cell phone conversations? >> no. >> google searches? >> no. >> text messages? >> no. >> amazon.com orders? >> no. >> bank records? >> no. >> what judicial consent is required for nsa to intercept communications and information involving american citizens? >> within the united states that would be the fbi, lee. if it was a foreign actor in the united states, the fbi would still have the lead and could work that with nsa or other intelligence agencies as authorized. but to conduct that kind of -- of collection in the united states, it would have to go through a court order. and the court would have to

authorize it. we're not authorized to do it, nor do we do it. >> james bamford what do you make of his reaction? >> again, the term was, interception. and nsa has its top secret definition of what interception means. and if you remember, just a few years ago, president bush was asked whether the nsa intercepts communications and he said, no. at the very same time they were conducting the warrantless eavesdropping operation. they asked officials back in the '70s about it and they denied doing it, when they've been doing it for 30 years. the problem is nsa doesn't have much accountability. there is very few times the nsa director has actually asked to testify. this was just an off the hand, off the -- sort of off hand comment that was made by one congressman, who happened to ask one question. and i think there really has to be a -- a really good congressional investigation on

what nsa's capabilities are. what it can do and what it does do. >> so why is the utah data center necessary? why are they building it there in utah? >> well, they're building it there, i think senator orrin hatch had a lot to do with it. he was chairman of the senate intelligence committee for quite a while, and very powerful senator. plus, they've got the area. it's a very big area, this area where they're building it. it's a very open military base in utah, and also i think the cost of electricity is cheaper there than it certainly is in maryland, where their headquarters are. and a lot of other places in the country, so there's a variety reasons why they put it there. >> should be ready in 2013. cost $2 billion. just to build it. how much will it cost to run it? you mentioned electricity?

>> it will probably be i think $40 million a year, something like that to run it. it's hard to say how much exactly but around there somebody estimated. >> why is that such an expensive cost? what's going on that the electricity cost is that high? >> you need to -- several things. you need all of these servers to store the data. one of the big costs is the cooling. you have to cool all of these computers and all of these servers, all of these technological devices. you need to cool them. and that takes a lot of electricity to run the cooling machines, the air conditioning. >> you mentioned computers. special super computer was built for the utah data center. talk about that. >> well, as i said, one of the nsa's jobs is code breaking. a lot of the information nsa is going to pick up to put in will be encrypted information. it will be encrypted is up as

foreign military, diplomatic and u.s. encryption. there are a lot of communications people send every day, whether you are buying a book from amazon or sending credit card information, that's encrypted, personal information, legal information a lot of times is encrypted. there's a lot of encrypted information. in order to break a code there are two things that you really need more than anything. you need a lot of data. you can't break code if you have one message or two. you need see patterns. if you have 200,000 it's easier to see patterns in that. you need a computer that's going to look for those patterns and sift through these combinations, called brute force. they need a computer that will do it very, very quickly. that's what they are building is the world's fastest computer down in tennessee. the same place they built the atomic bomb in world war ii. >> well, it operates at what's known at pediflop speed.

i think it's quadrillion operations a second. around 10 quadrillion operations a second and trying to advance it 1,000-fold to zetaflop. i think it is. i don't know what that is. it's very fast. >> you talk about the amount of data going through when you talk about -- everybody's e-mails and google searches and all of that. some of the terms that you throw out there, i don't know if people have even heard of it before, when it comes to -- people refer to megabytes or gigabyte. >> i referred to yoda bytes is the hiett. they haven't created a term beyond yodabytes. if you translate it into pages it's about 500 quintillion pages of text. and you can store a lot of information in a billion -- or a facility that's a million square

feet. when you figure you can put terabyte on swiss army knives now. they have a switch blade that can hold a terabyte of data. you can put a lot of data in a building the size of the nsa data center in utah. >> here's a graphic in your piece with the look at the center and what will be in there. it will encompass 1 million square feet. who will work there and how many? >> well, there won't -- building is actually where most of the jobs come in. there will be about 10,000 jobs in terms of building this thing for several years. >> contractors. >> contractors, yeah. then actually working in the facility there will only be maybe 200 at the most because it's basically baby-sitting the electronics, making sure everything is working, if something goes out, replacing it. but the actual analysis will be done externally, it will be done at nsa head quarters or nsa

listening posts by a secure fiberoptic link. >> this data center is top secret, what they do. the contractors had to be sworn to secrecy in order to get this bid. you talk about the groundbreaking ceremony where senator hatch and local authorities were there and said we're breaking ground but we can't tell you what's going on. how did you get this information? >> i've been writing about nsa for actually 30 years. the first book came out in 1982, so i've done three books on nsa and numerous articles on nsa. so i've been following it for many, many years. i developed a great number of sources on nsa over the years. one of my key sources for this article, actually the most senior official i've ever interviewed who has gone on the record is bill benny. he was a very, very senior official who was basically the person who designed the entire worldwide eavesdropping network

for nsa. he automated the worldwide eavesdropping network for nsa. and he left nsa soon after nsa began illegally eavesdropping on americans. he had been there almost 40 years, then he couldn't be there while they were doing what he considered illegal. illegal eavesdropping so he left and he told me that, well, he explained basically how nsa was doing all of this eavesdropping. and where it was doing it from and methods and how many i think he said there were something like 320 million calls a day they were intercepting. so he explained the enormous capability of nsa, and he said at the end you know, we're this far away, put his two fingers together, about an inch apart, said we're this far away from a turnkey totalitarian state. this from somebody who was a senior official, equal to a

general at nsa, had been there nearly 40 years. >> james bamford, investigative reporter wrote the piece. an author on the nsa's recent book, the shadow factory, the ultra secret nsa from the 9/11. to the eavesdropping on americans. let's get to the phone calls. robin is a republican in new haven, michigan. go ahead, robin. >> caller: i have a few comments to make, i hope i can get them all out. i remember 15, 20 years ago hearing about this big mega computer system they had in belgium. i think this will put the belgium one to shame. the other comment i have is that going back to hitler's time, the people that became ibm had a tracking and tracing system and that was how they were able to round up all the jews. and i think this is an outrage, and i mean, you had general petraeus coming out and saying they're going to be putting tracking devices in our appliances, our microwaves,

dishwashers, our phones. there's no escaping it. there's cameras on every corner. we live in the biggest police state, i mean it's incredible what our country has become. an overpowering system. >> all right, robin. what about that sentiment, is she accurate? >> i think there is -- the problem today is that you do have all of this technology out there and there's very few people that are saying no to it. there are very few congressional hearings on where we're going in terms of surveillance. i think it is a cross-party issue. i think republicans, libertarians and liberals are all concerned about this issue. because 20 years ago, 30 years ago you couldn't do that. the only way people communicated was either a regular telephone hanging in your kitchen, that was attached by a wire, or the mail. and the mail was sacrosanct. you couldn't open the mail. there were no scandals of illegally opening mail.

and today, everybody communicates by e-mail which is available to nsa, talk on cell phones as you drive down the street, tweets, all kinds of you know, go on facebook, look on google, page searches. you can pretty much watch a person for about a week or two you can pretty much get that person's life down pat by watching their electronic footprint for about a week. >> what about, though, that might -- information might not tell you much. what about the encrypted information. how easy is it to get that if you -- to get into people's data on their discs or hard drives. explain that process. >> well, if it's encrypted it's much more difficult to get in. what nsa or in other agencies, the fbi for example, would try to do first if they could, is to try to find your password, this there are various programs you can put out to find the

passwords. then you get in, then you don't have to do the brute force. they would do that mostly on large scale encryption that they would want to get the entire network and how it works. but they would always try to subvert somebody in a foreign country that works on computers or works on the network to try to get the information. but it is much more difficult, obviously, if it's encrypted. the problem with encryption, you can buy encryption. to a large degree you have to have the person you're communicating with also have the encryption. you can't send an encrypted message to somebody that doesn't have it, or they won't be able to read it. >> how good is the united states on breaking encrypted code? >> it's hard to say. again, one of the nsa's biggest secrets. you know, during world war ii, the germans thought they had the world's most secure communication system, the enigma machine. and the british with american help was able to break it.

same with the japanese purple code. the sophisticated code, the nsa or predecessor was able to break that during world war ii. so, it's very, very difficult to break codes but that's what nsa's job is, is to break codes, so they do it. >> that's what jkl wants to know. the nsa is the largest user of storage server companies are making bank. is that true? that nsa is the world's largest user of data storage? >> you know, i can't say that accurately. i would think that they certainly are up there in the top few. google probably stores a lot. there's probably a lot for facebook or whatever. but nsa probably pulls in more -- obviously nsa intercepts more communications than any place else. it's got to have a place to store it. i'd say it's probably accurate. >> the wire magazine story inside james bamford's piece, in

secret listening rooms nationwide. nsa software examines every e-mail, phone call and tweet as they zip by. >> caller: thanks for taking my call and thanks for c-span. i find it really interesting, mr. bamford, you do really good work. >> thank you. >> focus so much in the early part of the article on the history of the area where this center is. and you focus a lot on the polygamy that was originally there. i wonder if you are implying there is an alien mind-set different from most americans that allows these people to trample our civil rights and basically as that man said, basically the term you said using his fingers this far apart that totalitarian state. >> all right, let's get a response.

mr. bamford. >> it was interesting when i was looking at where they were building this data center, is they built it in this little town of bluffdale, utah. and the only other thing that i found of note in bluffdale was the fact that it was also home to the second largest secretary of plig mists in the country. i thought it was very interesting. i had two paragraph there is sort of looking at this combination of the secretive nsa people coming in and listening for these encrypted messages from space, then you have the polygamists in there also who were listening for messages from space to some degree or from the heavens. and they are both fairly secretive groups. because polygamy is illegal in the united states. so it was very interesting that you had this secretive group of eavesdroppers sharing this same little town with the secretary largest secretary of polygamists in the country.

it was the town even had to expand its boundaries to incorporate the entire facility t million square foot facility. it is a very interesting little note that the two groups there co habiting the same little town. >> phillip, independent caller. >> talking about polygamy. let me say this, the two party system is married to the military industrial complex games, and i recommend to all of those listening that the best book you wrote was "body of secrets." it's one of the greatest books i've read. i'm an activist, i've been out there working with the 25%, it's called 25 cent solution. and our goal is to get the military spending cut by 25%, and send the money back to the cities and states to help save jobs and rebuild the economy.

what the people don't realize is that 56 cents out of every federal tax dollar that you and i and the young lady send to the federal government goes to military spending which i'm sure part of is for this whole complex that you're talking about. 56 cents out of every dollar, it's outrageous. >> all right, philip. do we know what the overall nsa budget is every year and how many employees they have? >> it's all secret. the budget is enormous, nsa is about three times the size of the cia and -- in terms of personnel probably about three times the size of the cia. in terms of person ale el, possibly about three times the size also. it's hard to say. somewhere 30, 40,000 people, something like that. but it is an extremely expensive agency because it has so much hardware and satellites and

people all over the world. in the article, the wired magazine article, i show all of this new building that nsa has been going on in the last ten years. new listening posts in georgia, in texas, in colorado, in hawaii, putting new satellites up. putting new dishes and listening posts in england. so, it's -- their headquarters are spending another 2 to $3 billion on expanding its headquarters. then you've got the new super computer facilities down in tennessee, so it's an enormous building program and i agree with the caller that there's far too much military spending. it's -- eisenhower warned of the industrial complex, now it's intelligence security and military industrial complex that is gobbling up so much money when we could be spending for thingsp more useful in the united states.

one other point, it would be good if all of this money was usefully spent but nsa missed the first world trade center attack. it missed the attack on the "uss cole," it missed the attack on the east african embassies, it missed the attack on 9/11. it missed the attacks on -- or missed the underwear bomber who flew into detroit on christmas day, and they missed the times square bomber. so if you got something to draw that money it might be a different story. but the point is they spend, spend, spend and they collect so much information, it's not a lack of information they have, it's too much information that they collect. >> supporters of nsa might say we don't know how many they have caught. you're pointing out what they haven't been able to catch but perhaps we have no idea because it's top secret how many other times they are catching.

>> well, i've interviewed a lot of sources at nsa, including bill bennie. i think i would have found out if there was some massive terrorist operation that they stopped. i never heard of one yet. >> nsa's infringing on freedom of speech and association. what constitutional authority grants them this power? >> well, they have this -- let me back up for a second. nsa is a very unusual agency. it's extremely unusual. every other agency in the u.s. government was formed in congress. many there were bills creating the agency, there were hearings whether this should happen, when the cia was created. there was a bill before congress, they debated it. it was created in law. nsa was never created in law. it was created by a top secret memorandum signed by harry truman in 1952. it was created in absolute

secrecy. even congress wasn't allowed to know about it. even its name was supposed to be secret for years until it began leaking out. nsa was created in a secret method unlike any other agency. since then it has lived in this unique world where very few people are allowed to ask questions about it. the director hardly ever speaks in public before congress so the agency has little accountability. the only what you in terms of nsa's eavesdropping is a law called the foreign intelligence surveillance act which actually watered down the original law which was a foreign intelligence surveillance act created in 1978. and that put this court, it was a secret court, a foreign intelligence surveillance court, between the nsa and the public. so if nsa wanted to eavesdrop on a u.s. citizen, had to go to the court. that's what the bush administration bypassed and broke the law by doing that. after that the law was watered down to -- water down the

effectiveness and the role of the foreign intelligence surveillance court. in nsa's eavesdropping. >> john, a republican, st. louis, missouri. john, you're on the air. >> caller: i have a member of my not immediate family, just more or less distant relative who is a high ranking officer in air force intelligence. and he has to be vetted every year and they ask him repeatedly why my two sons married foreign nationals, one from germany and the other from spain which are our allies. i was told. and then the other questions get even more interesting. my hobby is paint ball war games. i'm active on the internet forums, and i frequently use terms like rpg, law, tank,