National Security Agency

I

Introduction

National Security Agency, United States government agency created in 1952 to conduct worldwide electronic surveillance, break foreign codes and ciphers, and develop encryption systems for the protection of United States government communications. A code or cipher is a system of letters, numbers, or symbols that convert normal language into a secret communication that can be understood only by someone who has the “key” for deciphering the code. Encryption is the process of turning normal language into code. See also Cryptography.

The National Security Agency (NSA) is the largest and most secret U.S. intelligence agency. Located on hundreds of acres of Fort George G. Meade, halfway between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Maryland, it produces the vast majority of intelligence reports used by the federal government. Most of those reports are the product of the agency’s worldwide network of ground-, ship-, air-, and space-based eavesdropping systems. Other reports come from the agency’s foreign partners, primarily in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as a number of other friendly countries.

Another area of focus for the agency is foreign noncommunications signals, such as radar and guided missile telemetry. By intercepting and analyzing radar signals, technicians are able to find ways to jam or deceive them. Eavesdropping on telemetry signals from foreign missiles and spacecraft provides the agency with a great deal of intelligence on the capabilities and accuracy of those systems.

II

Responsibilities

The NSA serves as a collector of intelligence for other federal agencies involved in defense, intelligence, and national security. These other agencies provide the NSA with information about subjects and targets in which they have interest, such as a new Chinese missile system or terrorist suspects in Turkey, for example. The NSA then programs its various eavesdropping systems to scan foreign and international communications to obtain relevant phone calls, e-mails, or other types of messages. Once these are collected, agency analysts review the intercepts and then write reports for the organizations that requested the information, as well as other agencies concerned with similar topics. Copies of the reports are also kept in large NSA computer databases that can be searched months or years in the future.

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The NSA’s form of espionage is known as signals intelligence, or “sigint.” Other intelligence agencies specialize in different collection techniques. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), for example, concentrates largely on “humint,” human intelligence from spies and agents recruited by CIA officers. Another agency, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, focuses on “geoint,” high-resolution imagery of ground targets captured by imaging satellites, specially rigged aircraft, or drones. And the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is largely responsible for military intelligence and “masint,” measurement and signature intelligence, a specialty that derives intelligence from the capture of such things as radiation and chemical particles.

Within the United States intelligence community, NSA’s signals intelligence has always been considered far more reliable than intelligence collected from human sources, such as foreign defectors and agents-in-place. The human agents, for example, may be passing false information to obtain a visa or money or because they are double agents working for a foreign government. But with intercepted telephone, data, and Internet communications from unsuspecting foreign officials or terrorists, chances that the intelligence is deliberately manipulated are far fewer.

Nevertheless, with the end of the Cold War and the new focus on terrorism, the NSA has had a difficult time adjusting. In the past, the agency could rely on a constant flow of communications, much of it unencrypted, coming from army, navy, and air force units belonging to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the Cold War foe of the United States that dissolved in 1991. But today, terrorist cells are designed to limit communications to just a few people. And within the group, most of the communication is through face-to-face meetings or, occasionally, through the use of random and anonymous cyber cafes and disposable cellular phones. Overcoming these new challenges is proving difficult for the agency.

III

Structure

By tradition, the director of the NSA has always been a three-star general or admiral, and the deputy director has always been a career agency employee. The NSA director reports to both the secretary of defense and director of national intelligence. The NSA director is in charge of the tens of thousands of civilians who work mainly at the agency headquarters and a number of field locations in the United States and around the world. The NSA director is also chief of the Central Security Service, the NSA’s own military organization. As chief of the security service, the director is responsible for thousands of Army, Navy, Marine, and Air Force personnel who operate many of the agency’s listening posts around the world.

In 2005 Army Lieutenant General Keith Alexander succeeded Air Force Lieutenant General Michael V. Hayden as NSA director. General Hayden received his fourth star and went on to become the principal deputy director of national intelligence and, in 2006, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Internally, the agency is divided according to function. The largest organization is the Directorate of Sigint Operations, which is responsible for the agency’s worldwide eavesdropping activities. The Information Assurance Directorate, on the other hand, works to ensure that no foreign power has the ability to penetrate official U.S. communications. A third large organization, the Technology and Systems Directorate, specializes in research and development.

IV

Gathering Intelligence and Reporting Findings

The NSA conducts its signals-intelligence mission from a variety of “platforms.” Platforms are essentially devices that enable the NSA to eavesdrop on communications. Platforms may be located on or below the ocean surface, on land, or in air or space.

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