NSA plant in San Antonio shrouded in secrecy

SAN ANTONIO - Over the past six years, the National Security Agency has quietly transformed the former Sony chip fabrication plant on the northwest side into a black-box hub of intelligence gathering and data storage.

Satellite and aerial imagery show that massive air conditioning units and backup generators have been added to the facility, which is now ringed by barbed-wire fencing. City permits and property tax records show that the complex has been dramatically expanded.(schnip)

However, a San Antonio Express-News examination of funding for major construction projects listed in the Defense Department's budgets from fiscal years 2004 through 2013 found no appropriations for the extensive work at the old Sony plant.

"I would have thought that funding for the San Antonio facility would be handled about the same as that for Utah or Georgia, and I can't immediately think of why it wasn't," said Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' government secrecy project.

(A) spokeswoman said the facility became operational late last year.