Silence Remembered - The Horizon of NSA Intelligence Surveillance (2000s-2010s)

Silence Remembered - The Horizon of NSA Intelligence Surveillance (2000s-2010s)

The NSA's Utah Data Center, built on dry land in Utah, is a massive storage facility that collects the world's communications in silence; it began operating in 2013 in the name of national security, collecting emails, phone calls, and even Internet search history to store our invisible daily lives.

The scale of the NSA's interceptions can be described as extraordinary: approximately 1.7 billion communications are processed each day, or 20 trillion per year. To store this vast amount of data, the facility, which has a capacity of up to 5 zettabytes, is like an ocean of information itself. It consumes 65 megawatts of electricity and costs about $40 million a year to maintain.

The problem, however, is that such surveillance goes on unnoticed. Domestic communications are no exception, and citizens are becoming increasingly concerned as the line between privacy and freedom blurs. As the technology of interception evolves, our "silence" also begins to be remembered and made meaningful. It is like an invisible gravity that changes the shape of freedom.