When the National Security Agency broke ground in 2011 on a $1.2 billion data center in Utah, it launched the largest defense construction project in the nation.

The NSA described the center’s mission as supporting “the intelligence community’s efforts to further strengthen and protect the nation’s cyber security.”

Its aim, officials said then, was to help other government agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, in protecting national security networks.

It appears that its purpose is also to plumb other computer networks, in the United States and abroad. The New York Times reports that the center is designed to “to store huge volumes of personal data indefinitely.”