Drowning in Data

Is this really necessary?

Our nation is drowning in data. At any given time, federal agencies use more electronic storage units than could fill every NFL stadium from Oakland to Foxboro. At last count, the US government owns or leases at least 2100 data centers, and spends about half of its multi-billion dollar IT budget on digital storage. The United States Census Bureau alone maintains about 2560 terabytes of information — more data than is contained in all the academic libraries in America, and the equivalent of about 50 million four-door filing cabinets of text documents. ... Storage capacity is increasing, but the volume of data is also increasing, perhaps just as quickly. Over the next decade, the world will produce the informational equivalent of nearly 100 million Libraries of Congress per year, according to Cisco's Internet Business Solutions Group.