BLUFFDALE, UTAH—Lorina Potter, 34-year-old IT specialist, mother of four, gun owner, Republican, self-described conspiracy theorist and Mormon, eases her white minivan off a desert stretch of highway outside the Utah Data Center, a secretive National Security Agency facility almost as big as the town where it is located. 

She parks behind Susan Beretta’s car, which died as soon as she turned off the ignition and now needs a boost. 

A couple of cars parked on the asphalt outside such a sensitive facility would presumably prompt a security alert, at the very least a car with flashing lights and a stern “move along, ladies.”  But these women actually own this three-kilometre strip of road. 

Potter and Beretta are members of the Utah chapter of Restore the Fourth, a country-wide movement opposed to the NSA’s electronic omnipresence, as revealed through leaks from Edward J. Snowden, a former NSA contractor. 

The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects “against unreasonable searches and seizures,” and for patriotic Americans like Potter and Beretta, it is as sacred as the right to bear arms or to free speech. 

Restore the Fourth members were among the hundreds who marched on Washington in October to protest against online surveillance. 

But perhaps nowhere have the group’s members been more ingenious than in the town of Bluffdale, population 8,000.  And perhaps nowhere is the evidence of NSA’s expansion more obvious — all one million square feet of it on display at the newly constructed “Utah Data Center,” also known by the sexier codename, “Bumblehive.” 

Bumblehive, built to store much of the world’s electronic signals intelligence, occupies part of Camp Williams, a National Guard training site, nestled between the Oquirrh Mountains and the Wasatch Range, a desert-like terrain inhabited by rattlesnakes in the summer and often blanketed by snow by November.  Utah Governor Gary Herbert announced last year that the centre would be the first in the world to store a “yottabyte” of data (1,000 trillion gigabytes). 

South of Bluffdale is the town of Lehi, where the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), which supports polygamy, has a strong base. 

“In this little town of Bluffdale, Big Love and Big Brother have become uneasy neighbours,” national security writer James Bamford wrote in a March 2012 Wired cover story about Bumblehive. 

There was no way to keep this huge facility secret, but before Bamford’s story, few knew the details of what was being built — and after the Snowden leaks this year, many weren’t happy. 

About 200 citizens came out for a July 4th demonstration outside Bumblehive, but the group was told they couldn’t protest in front of the building.  Before they left, they tied red, white and blue ribbons to the fence, which remain today. 

Then in October, one of the group’s members figured out a way to get close to the $1.5-billion facility: apply to the state’s Adopt-A-Highway program to put their signs along a section of Route 68 that runs alongside Bumblehive.  Next time they stage a protest, they will make sure to pick up the garbage, too. 

And that’s why Potter has driven 35 kilometres south of Salt Lake to meet Beretta here, so we can talk in our cars on their (clean) adopted road near the facility set to open soon. 

There’s no middle ground for Potter, no arguments to be made that data collection may be crucial to security, and that not all the NSA does is unlawful.  She wants the facility closed and used for a prison (“we’re running out of space”).  Aside from privacy concerns, she opposes the environmental cost, the estimated 1.7 million gallons of water required each day, in part to cool the NSA’s electronic equipment. 

Potter bears a slight resemblance to actress Reese Witherspoon.  She smiles as she talks, but every so often the right corner of her lip rises in a sneer of disbelief. 

“Today I had somebody say to me, ‘Well, I have nothing to hide.’ ”  She shakes her head. “But you do have things to hide, you just don’t realize it, and not just you, that affects the people you come in contact with.  By taking the stance that you have nothing to hide, you are making it less safe for them. 

“More than that, you have a right to not be spied on.” 

The fallout from the Snowden documents continues to reverberate around the world, including Canada, where leaks concerning the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) have just begun to surface. 

What has come to light so far is the fact that CSEC permitted the NSA to conduct surveillance in Canada during the G8 and G20 summits in 2010, while also working with the U.S. and Britain to spy on high-powered attendees at the G20 Summit a year earlier in London.  The revelations raise key questions about the “Five Eyes” agreement with the U.S., Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand, that forbids spying on each other, or spying by proxy on a country’s own citizens through the partners. 

Another leak indicated CSEC had been spying on Brazil’s Ministry of Mines and Energy, causing a diplomatic row between Rio and Ottawa. 

Although there have been calls in Ottawa for greater oversight, the level of grassroots opposition doesn’t come close to what is happening in the U.S.

“The level of public interest and then response to it has been extraordinary.  I have to say it took me a bit by surprise because I thought, ‘Well, we knew a lot of this already,’ ” says Shane Harris, author of the 2010 book, The Watchers: The Rise of America’s Surveillance State.  Like Bamford, Harris has been writing about the rise of the NSA and other spy agencies since Sept. 11, largely based on sources and investigative work. 

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“The reason why this is so different is you have documents associated with it and whenever you have someone leaking documents it is immediately more compelling.  You have evidence of a crime you can now point to and say, ‘This is a court order saying these things are happening,’ as opposed to anonymous sources.” 

He adds: “Just having Snowden attached to it made a difference, it made this story a human drama.  That was the most unexpected point, because whistleblowers just don’t identify themselves.” 

Before Sept. 11 it would have been difficult to imagine a facility like Bumblehive — there wouldn’t be the need, let alone the finances available.  But now with a clearer picture of the scope of signals intelligence (SIGINT) being collected, the NSA has run out of space to store it.  Canada’s CSEC has faced a similar problem and a $1.2-billion facility in Ottawa is set to open next year. 

This mass collection of SIGINT is how the NSA has changed in the last decade, from the Cold War model where the targets were obvious, to a world that focuses, as Harris says, on “collect, collect, collect.” 

“It was always a very big agency with lots of sensors, ground stations and equipment all over the world trying to target communications but it was really focused on a target — it was trying to penetrate the Soviet Union, it was trying to spy on officials,” says Harris. 

“After Sept. 11 the mission really does change to . . .  trying to find the signal in all the noise.” 

Aside from the weighty financial, ethical and legal issues (operating outside the laws protecting privacy and collection of information) is this mass electronic surveillance helping security?  Harris believes the NSA has put collection of data ahead of the analysis of the information. 

“The NSA got very good at collecting dots and not very good at connecting them.” 

Potter has a booster in her car, a simple gadget that plugs into the cigarette lighter, and within minutes after ending our minivan-interview, Beretta’s car is ready to go. 

Beretta is retired at 55, having moved here from the bustle of Los Angeles to a quiet life with her husband.  Aside from protesting the NSA, she is taking on the Transportation Security Administration and refuses to fly due to intrusive airport searches. 

Another Bumblehive protest is in the works, and soon they will start brainstorming about other ways to stop this facility from operating. 

So far their job has been easy.  The facility’s September opening was delayed due to massive electric failures.  According to the Wall Street Journal, electrical surges have already destroyed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of machinery. 

This cost is yet another NSA issue that irks Potter. 

“My children should not have a future where their government is bankrupt and they’re picking up the pieces,” she says. “ We’re American.  We’re a great super power.  This isn’t America.  This is an absolute assault on America and Americans.” 

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