March 21, 2012 12:33PM 

# The Country’s Biggest Spy Center 

By [Jim Harper](https://www.cato.org/people/jim-harper) 

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Under insufficiently sharp questioning, the head of the National Security Agency, Keith Alexander, [has denied](http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/03/20/nsa-chief-denies-wireds-domestic-spying-story-fourteen-times-in-congressional-hearing/) the substance of a [*Wired* report on the agency’s massive new computer facility](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/1) and the capabilities the government has to monitor our communications—even heavily encrypted communications.

If you want a sense of how Congress, still panicked by 9/11, has abdicated its responsibilities and permitted the construction of a “turnkey totalitarian state,” [read the whole thing](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/1).

##### Related Tags 

[Defense and Foreign Policy](https://www.cato.org/defense-foreign-policy), [Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Technology and Privacy](https://www.cato.org/technology-privacy), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) 

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