National Security Agency 1

National Security Agency

National Security Agency

Seal of the National Security Agency

Flag of the National Security Agency

Agency overview

Formed November 4, 1952

Preceding Agency Armed Forces Security Agency

Jurisdiction United States of America

Headquarters Fort Meade, Maryland, U.S.

Employees Classified

Annual budget Classified

Agency executives General Keith B. Alexander, U.S. Army, Director of the National SecurityAgencyJohn C. Inglis, Deputy Director of the National Security Agency

Parent Agency United States Department of Defense

Website

www.nsa.gov [1]

The National Security Agency (NSA) is a cryptologic intelligence agency of the United States Department ofDefense responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence, aswell as protecting U.S. government communications and information systems,[] which involves information securityand cryptanalysis/cryptography.The NSA is directed by at least a lieutenant general or vice admiral. NSA is a key component of the U.S. IntelligenceCommunity, which is headed by the Director of National Intelligence. The Central Security Service is a co-locatedagency created to coordinate intelligence activities and co-operation between NSA and other U.S. militarycryptanalysis agencies. The Director of the National Security Agency serves as the Commander of the United StatesCyber Command and Chief of the Central Security Service.[2]

By law, NSA's intelligence gathering is limited to foreign communications, although domestic incidents such as theNSA warrantless surveillance controversy have occurred.

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HistoryThe National Security Agency's predecessor was the Armed Forces Security Agency (AFSA), created on May 20,1949.[3] This organization was originally established within the U.S. Department of Defense under the command ofthe Joint Chiefs of Staff. The AFSA was to direct the communications and electronic intelligence activities of theU.S. military intelligence units: the Army Security Agency, the Naval Security Group, and the Air Force SecurityService. However, that agency had little power and lacked a centralized coordination mechanism. The creation ofNSA resulted from a December 10, 1951, memo sent by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Walter BedellSmith to James S. Lay, Executive Secretary of the National Security Council.[4] The memo observed that "controlover, and coordination of, the collection and processing of Communications Intelligence had proved ineffective" andrecommended a survey of communications intelligence activities. The proposal was approved on December 13,1951, and the study authorized on December 28, 1951. The report was completed by June 13, 1952. Generallyknown as the "Brownell Committee Report," after committee chairman Herbert Brownell, it surveyed the history ofU.S. communications intelligence activities and suggested the need for a much greater degree of coordination anddirection at the national level. As the change in the security agency's name indicated, the role of NSA was extendedbeyond the armed forces.The creation of NSA was authorized in a letter written by President Harry S. Truman in June 1952. The agency wasformally established through a revision of National Security Council Intelligence Directive (NSCID) 9 on October24, 1952,[4] and officially came into existence on November 4, 1952. President Truman's letter was itself classifiedand remained unknown to the public for more than a generationWikipedia:Vagueness. A brief but vague reference tothe NSA first appeared in the United States Government Organization Manual from 1957, which described it as "aseparately organized agency within the Department of Defense under the direction, authority, and control of theSecretary of Defense [...] for the performance of highly specialized technical functions in support of the intelligenceactivities of the United States."[5]

National Security Agency Memorials

National Cryptologic Memorial

Crews associated with NSA missions have beeninvolved in a number of dangerous and deadlysituations. The well known USS Liberty incident in1967 and USS Pueblo incident in 1968 are a smallsample of the losses endured during the Cold War.[6]

The National Security Agency/Central Security ServiceCryptologic Memorial honors and remembers the fallenpersonnel, both military and civilian, of theseintelligence missions. It is made of black granite, andhas 163 names (as of 2011) carved into it. It is locatedat NSA headquarters. A tradition of declassifying thestories of the fallen was begun in 2001.[7]

In addition to the Cryptologic Memorial, the NSA also features the NSA Hall of Honor, a memorial at the NationalSecurity Agency headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. It honors individuals who rendered distinguished service toAmerican cryptology.

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Organizational structureThe National Security Agency is divided into two major missions: the Signals Intelligence Directorate (SID), whichproduces foreign signals intelligence information, and the Information Assurance Directorate (IAD), which protectsU.S. information systems.[8]

Facilities

NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland

Headquarters for the National SecurityAgency is at Fort George G. Meade,Maryland, about 15 mi (24 km) southwest ofBaltimore. The NSA has its own exit offMaryland Route 295 South labeled "NSAEmployees Only". The scale of theoperations at the NSA is hard to determinefrom unclassified data; some 18,000 parkingspaces are visible in photos of the site. In2006, The Baltimore Sun reported that theNSA was at risk of electrical overloadbecause of insufficient internal electricalinfrastructure at Fort Meade to support theamount of equipment being installed. Thisproblem was apparently recognized in the1990s but not made a priority, and "now theagency's ability to keep its operations goingis threatened."[9] The article noted that NSA has had to open a satellite office outside the Baltimore area becauseNSA has completely maxed out the electrical Grid; Baltimore Gas & Electric cannot provide NSA any moreelectricity at their current location. Its secure government communications work has involved the NSA in numeroustechnology areas, including the design of specialized communications hardware and software, production ofdedicated semiconductors (at the Ft. Meade chip fabrication plant), and advanced cryptography research. The agencycontracts with the private sector in the fields of research and equipment.

In addition to its Ft. Meade headquarters, the NSA has facilities at the Texas Cryptology Center in San Antonio,Texas; at Fort Gordon, Georgia, and elsewhere. (See also Friendship Annex.)On January 6, 2011 a groundbreaking ceremony was held to begin construction on the NSA's first ComprehensiveNational Cyber-security Initiative (CNCI) Data Center; the "Utah Data Center" for short. The US $2 billion datacenter is being built at Camp Williams, Utah, located 25 miles (40 km) miles south of Salt Lake City. The datacenter will help support the agency's National Cyber-security Initiative.[10] It is expected to be operational bySeptember of 2013.[11]

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NSANet

Behind the Green Door secure communications center with SIPRNET,GWAN, NSANET, and JWICS access

NSANet is the official National Security Agencyintranet.[] It is a classified internal network,[] andTS/SCI.[] In 2004 it was reported to have usedover twenty commercial off-the-shelf operatingsystems.[] Some universities that do highlysensitive research are allowed to connect to it.[]

In 1998 it, along with NIPRNET and SIPRNET,had "significant problems with poor searchcapabilities, unorganized data and oldinformation".[] In 2001 it was reported on the PRNewswire that NSA bought Auto-Trol's productKONFIG® NM to help "document and manage"NSANet.[][][][][][][][]

National Computer Security Center

The National Computer Security Center, once part of the National Security Agency, was established in 1981 and wasresponsible for testing and evaluating computer equipment for use in high security and/or confidential applications.NCSC was also responsible for publishing the Orange Book and Trusted Network Interpretation (Red Book)detailing trusted computing and network platform specifications. The two works are more formally known as theTrusted Computing System Evaluation Criteria and Trusted Network Interpretation, part of the Rainbow Series,however, they have largely been replaced by the Common Criteria.

Operations

Mission

Cray X-MP/24 (ser. no. 115) supercomputer ondisplay at the National Cryptologic Museum.

NSA's eavesdropping mission includes radio broadcasting, both fromvarious organizations and individuals, the Internet, telephone calls, andother intercepted forms of communication. Its secure communicationsmission includes military, diplomatic, and all other sensitive,confidential or secret government communications. It has beendescribed as the world's largest single employer of mathematicians,[12]

and the owner of the single largest group of supercomputers,[13] but ithas tried to keep a low profile. For many years, its existence was notacknowledged by the U.S. government, earning it the nickname, "NoSuch Agency" (NSA). It was also quipped that their motto is "NeverSay Anything".[14]

According to the Washington Post, "[e]very day, collection systems atthe National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails,phone calls and other types of communications. The NSA sorts afraction of those into 70 separate databases."[15]

Because of its listening task, NSA/CSS has been heavily involved in cryptanalytic research, continuing the work ofpredecessor agencies which had broken many World War II codes and ciphers (see, for instance, Purple, Venonaproject, and JN-25).

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In 2004, NSA Central Security Service and the National Cyber Security Division of the Department of HomelandSecurity (DHS) agreed to expand NSA Centers of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance EducationProgram.[16]

As part of the National Security Presidential Directive 54/Homeland Security Presidential Directive 23 (NSPD 54),signed on January 8, 2008 by President Bush, the NSA became the lead agency to monitor and protect all of thefederal government's computer networks from cyber-terrorism.[] In 2010, Robert Gates called for DHS to have a"cell" that would be able to apply the full surveillance powers of NSA for domestic cyber security.[17]

ECHELONNSA/CSS, in combination with the equivalent agencies in the United Kingdom (Government CommunicationsHeadquarters), Canada (Communications Security Establishment), Australia (Defence Signals Directorate), and NewZealand (Government Communications Security Bureau), otherwise known as the UKUSA group,[18] is widelyreported to be in command of the operation of the so-called ECHELON system. Its capabilities are suspected toinclude the ability to monitor a large proportion of the world's transmitted civilian telephone, fax and data traffic.[19]

Technically, almost all modern telephone, internet, fax and satellite communications are exploitable due to recentadvances in technology and the 'open air' nature of much of the radio communications around the world. NSA'spresumed collection operations have generated much criticism, possibly stemming from the assumption thatNSA/CSS represents an infringement of Americans' privacy. However, NSA's United States Signals IntelligenceDirective 18 (USSID 18) strictly prohibits the interception or collection of information about "... U.S. persons,entities, corporations or organizations...." without explicit written legal permission from the United States AttorneyGeneral when the subject is located abroad, or the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court when within U.S.Borders.[20] The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that intelligence agencies cannot conduct surveillance againstAmerican citizens. There are a few extreme circumstances where collecting on a U.S. entity is allowed without aUSSID 18 waiver, such as with civilian distress signals, or sudden emergencies such as the September 11, 2001attacks; however, the USA PATRIOT Act has significantly changed privacy legality.There have been alleged violations of USSID 18 that occurred in violation of NSA's strict charter prohibiting suchacts.[citation needed] In addition, alleged ECHELON-related activities, including its use for motives other than itsnational security, including political and industrial espionage, have received criticism from countries outside theUKUSA alliance.[][21] Examples include the gear-less wind turbine technology designed by the German firmEnercon[22][23] and the speech technology developed by the Belgian firm Lernout & Hauspie. An article in theBaltimore Sun reported in 1995 that aerospace company Airbus lost a $6 billion contract with Saudi Arabia in 1994after NSA reported that Airbus officials had been bribing Saudi officials to secure the contract.[24][25]

Domestic activityNSA's mission, as set forth in Executive Order 12333, is to collect information that constitutes "foreign intelligenceor counterintelligence" while not "acquiring information concerning the domestic activities of United Statespersons". NSA has declared that it relies on the FBI to collect information on foreign intelligence activities withinthe borders of the USA, while confining its own activities within the USA to the embassies and missions of foreignnations.NSA's domestic surveillance activities are limited by the requirements imposed by the Fourth Amendment to theU.S. Constitution; however, these protections do not apply to non-U.S. persons located outside of U.S. borders, sothe NSA's foreign surveillance efforts are subject to far fewer limitations under U.S. law.[26] The specificrequirements for domestic surveillance operations are contained in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978(FISA), which does not extend protection to non-U.S. citizens located outside of U.S. territory.[26]

These activities, especially the publicly acknowledged domestic telephone tapping and call database programs, haveprompted questions about the extent of the NSA's activities and concerns about threats to privacy and the rule of law.

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Wiretapping programs

Domestic wiretapping under Richard Nixon

In the years after President Richard Nixon resigned, there were several investigations of suspected misuse of CentralIntelligence Agency (CIA) and NSA facilities. Senator Frank Church headed a Senate investigating committee (theChurch Committee) which uncovered previously unknown activity, such as a CIA plot (ordered by President John F.Kennedy) to assassinate Fidel Castro. The investigation also uncovered NSA's wiretaps on targeted Americancitizens. After the Church Committee hearings, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 became law,limiting circumstances under which domestic surveillance was allowed.[citation needed]

IT projects: ThinThread, Trailblazer, Turbulence

NSA created new IT systems to deal with the flood of information from new technologies like the internet andcellphones.ThinThread contained advanced data mining capabilities. It also had a 'privacy mechanism'; surveillance was storedencrypted; decryption required a warrant. The research done under this program may have contributed to thetechnology used in later systems. Thinthread was cancelled when Michael Hayden chose Trailblazer, which did notinclude Thinthread's privacy system.[]

Trailblazer Project ramped up circa 2000. SAIC, Boeing, CSC, IBM, and Litton worked on it. Some NSAwhistleblowers complained internally about major problems surrounding Trailblazer. This led to investigations byCongress and the NSA and DoD Inspectors General. The project was cancelled circa 2003-4; it was late, overbudget,and didn't do what it was supposed to do. The Baltimore Sun ran articles about this in 2006–07. The governmentthen raided the whistleblower's houses. One of them, Thomas Drake, was charged with 18 U.S.C. § 793(e) [27] in2010 in an unusual use of espionage law. He and his defenders claim that he was actually being persecuted forchallenging the Trailblazer Project. In 2011, all 10 original charges against Drake were dropped.[28][29]

Turbulence started circa 2005. It was developed in small, inexpensive 'test' pieces rather than one grand plan likeTrailblazer. It also included offensive cyber-warfare capabilities, like injecting malware into remote computers.Congress criticized Turbulence in 2007 for having similar bureaucratic problems as Trailblazer.[29]. It was to be arealization of Information-Processing at higher speeds in cyberspace (http:/ / www. baltimoresun. com/ news/nation-world/ bal-nsa050607,0,1517618. story)

Warrantless wiretaps under George W. Bush

On December 16, 2005, the New York Times reported that, under White House pressure and with an executive orderfrom President George W. Bush, the National Security Agency, in an attempt to thwart terrorism, had been tappingphone calls made to persons outside the country, without obtaining warrants from the United States ForeignIntelligence Surveillance Court, a secret court created for that purpose under the Foreign Intelligence SurveillanceAct (FISA).[30]

One such surveillance program, authorized by the U.S. Signals Intelligence Directive 18 of President George Bush,was the Highlander Project undertaken for the National Security Agency by the U.S. Army 513th MilitaryIntelligence Brigade. NSA relayed telephone (including cell phone) conversations obtained from both ground,airborne, and satellite monitoring stations to various U.S. Army Signal Intelligence Officers, including the 201stMilitary Intelligence Battalion. Conversations of citizens of the U.S. were intercepted, along with those of othernations.[31]

Proponents of the surveillance program claim that the President has executive authority to order such action, arguing that laws such as FISA are overridden by the President's Constitutional powers. In addition, some argued that FISA was implicitly overridden by a subsequent statute, the Authorization for Use of Military Force, although the Supreme Court's ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld deprecates this view. In the August 2006 case ACLU v. NSA, U.S. District

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Court Judge Anna Diggs Taylor concluded that NSA's warrantless surveillance program was both illegal andunconstitutional. On July 6, 2007 the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the decision on the grounds that theACLU lacked standing to bring the suit.[32]

AT&T Internet monitoring

In May 2006, Mark Klein, a former AT&T employee, alleged that his company had cooperated with NSA ininstalling Narus (company) hardware to replace the FBI Carnivore program, to monitor network communicationsincluding traffic between American citizens.[33]

Wiretapping under Barack Obama

The New York Times reported in 2009 that the NSA is intercepting communications of American citizens including aCongressman, although the Justice Department believed that the NSA had corrected its errors.[34] United StatesAttorney General Eric Holder resumed the wiretapping according to his understanding of the Foreign IntelligenceSurveillance Act of 1978 Amendments Act of 2008 which Congress passed in July 2008 but without explaining whathad occurred.[35]

Transaction data mining

NSA is reported to use its computing capability to analyze "transactional" data that it regularly acquires from othergovernment agencies, which gather it under their own jurisdictional authorities. As part of this effort, NSA nowmonitors huge volumes of records of domestic emails and Internet searches as well as bank transfers, credit-cardtransactions and travel and telephone records, according to current and former intelligence officials interviewed bythe Wall Street Journal.[36]

Past NSA SIGINT activities•• Gulf of Tonkin Incident•• Korean Air Lines Flight 007•• Operation Ivy Bells• USS Liberty incident• USS Pueblo (AGER-2)•• VENONA project

Role in scientific research and developmentNSA has been involved in debates about public policy, both indirectly as a behind-the-scenes adviser to otherdepartments, and directly during and after Vice Admiral Bobby Ray Inman's directorship. NSA was a major playerin the debates of the 1990s regarding the export of cryptography. Restrictions on export were reduced but noteliminated in 1996.

Data Encryption StandardNSA was embroiled in some minor controversy concerning its involvement in the creation of the Data Encryption Standard (DES), a standard and public block cipher algorithm used by the U.S. government and banking community. During the development of DES by IBM in the 1970s, NSA recommended changes to some details of the design. There was suspicion that these changes had weakened the algorithm sufficiently to enable the agency to eavesdrop if required, including speculation that a critical component—the so-called S-boxes—had been altered to insert a "backdoor" and that the reduction in key length might have made it feasible for NSA to discover DES keys using massive computing power. It has since been observed that the S-boxes in DES are particularly resilient against differential cryptanalysis, a technique which was not publicly discovered until the late 1980s, but which was known

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to the IBM DES team. The United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence reviewed NSA's involvement, andconcluded that while the agency had provided some assistance, it had not tampered with the design.[37][38] In late2009 NSA declassified information stating that "NSA worked closely with IBM to strengthen the algorithm againstall except brute force attacks and to strengthen substitution tables, called S-boxes. Conversely, NSA tried toconvince IBM to reduce the length of the key from 64 to 48 bits. Ultimately they compromised on a 56-bit key."[39]

Clipper chipBecause of concerns that widespread use of strong cryptography would hamper government use of wiretaps, NSAproposed the concept of key escrow in 1993 and introduced the Clipper chip that would offer stronger protectionthan DES but would allow access to encrypted data by authorized law enforcement officials. The proposal wasstrongly opposed and key escrow requirements ultimately went nowhere. However, NSA's Fortezza hardware-basedencryption cards, created for the Clipper project, are still used within government, and NSA ultimately published thedesign of the SKIPJACK cipher (but not the key exchange protocol) used on the cards.

Advanced Encryption StandardPossibly because of previous controversy, the involvement of NSA in the selection of a successor to DES, theAdvanced Encryption Standard (AES), was initially limited to hardware performance testing (see AES competition).NSA has subsequently certified AES for protection of classified information (for at most two levels, e.g. SECRETinformation in an unclassified environment) when used in NSA-approved systems.

SHAThe widely used SHA-1 and SHA-2 hash functions were designed by NSA. SHA-1 is a slight modification of theweaker SHA-0 algorithm, also designed by NSA in 1993. This small modification was suggested by NSA two yearslater, with no justification other than the fact that it provides additional security. An attack for SHA-0 that does notapply to the revised algorithm was indeed found between 1998 and 2005 by academic cryptographers. Because ofweaknesses and key length restrictions in SHA-1, NIST deprecates its use for digital signatures, and approves onlythe newer SHA-2 algorithms for such applications from 2013 on.[40]

A new hash standard, SHA-3, has recently been selected through the competition concluded October 2, 2012 withthe selection of Keccak as the algorithm. The process to select SHA-3 was similar to the one held in choosing theAES, which concluded in 2001.

Dual EC DRBG random number generatorNSA promoted the inclusion of a random number generator called Dual EC DRBG in the U.S. National Institute ofStandards and Technology's 2007 guidelines. This led to speculation of a backdoor which would allow NSA accessto data encrypted by systems using that random number generator.[41]

Academic researchNSA has invested many millions of dollars in academic research under grant code prefix MDA904, resulting in over3,000 papers (as of 2007-10-11). NSA/CSS has, at times, attempted to restrict the publication of academic researchinto cryptography; for example, the Khufu and Khafre block ciphers were voluntarily withheld in response to anNSA request to do so.

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PatentsNSA has the ability to file for a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office under gag order. Unlike normalpatents, these are not revealed to the public and do not expire. However, if the Patent Office receives an applicationfor an identical patent from a third party, they will reveal NSA's patent and officially grant it to NSA for the full termon that date.[42]

One of NSA's published patents describes a method of geographically locating an individual computer site in anInternet-like network, based on the latency of multiple network connections.[43]

CriticismsThe NSA received criticism early on in 1960 after two agents had defected to the Soviet Union. Investigations by theHouse Un-American Activities Committee and a special subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committeerevealed severe cases of ignorance in personnel security regulations, prompting the former personnel director and thedirector of security to step down and leading to the adoption of stricter security practices.[5] Nonetheless, securitybreaches reoccurred only a year later when in an issue of Izvestia of July 23, 1963, a former NSA employeepublished several cryptologic secrets. The very same day, an NSA clerk-messenger committed suicide as ongoinginvestigations disclosed that he had sold secret information to the Soviets on a regular basis. The reluctance ofCongressional houses to look into these affairs had prompted a journalist to write "If a similar series of tragicblunders occurred in any ordinary agency of Government an aroused public would insist that those responsible beofficially censured, demoted, or fired." David Kahn criticized the NSA's tactics of concealing its doings as smug andthe Congress' blind faith in the agency's right-doing as shortsighted, and pointed out the necessity of surveillance bythe Congress to prevent abuse of power.[5]

The number of exemptions from legal requirements has also been criticized. When in 1964 the Congress was hearinga bill giving the director of the NSA the power to fire at will any employee, the Washington Post wrote: "This is thevery definition of arbitrariness. It means that an employee could be discharged and disgraced on the basis ofanonymous allegations without the slightest opportunity to defend himself." Yet, the bill was accepted withoverwhelming majority.[5]

On January 17, 2006, the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a lawsuit, CCR v. Bush, against the George W. BushPresidency. The lawsuit challenged the National Security Agency's (NSA's) surveillance of people within the U.S.,including the interception of CCR emails without securing a warrant first.[][]

Insignia

The NSA's insignia.

The heraldic insignia of NSA consists of a bald eagle facing its right, grasping akey in its talons, representing NSA's clutch on security as well as the mission toprotect and gain access to secrets. The eagle is set on a background of blue and itsbreast features a blue shield supported by 13 bands of red and white. Thesurrounding white circular border features "National Security Agency" around thetop and "United States of America" underneath, with two five-pointed silver starsbetween the two phrases. The current NSA insignia has been in use since 1965,when then-Director, LTG Marshall S. Carter (USA) ordered the creation of adevice to represent the Agency.[44]

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Staff

Directors

• November 1952 – November 1956 LTG Ralph J. Canine, USA• November 1956 – November 1960 Lt Gen John A. Samford, USAF• November 1960 – January 1962 VADM Laurence H. Frost, USN• January 1962 – June 1965 Lt Gen Gordon A. Blake, USAF• June 1965 – August 1969 Lt Gen Marshall S. Carter, USA• August 1969 – August 1972 VADM Noel A. M. Gaylor, USN• August 1972 – August 1973 Lt Gen Samuel C. Phillips, USAF• August 1973 – July 1977 Lt Gen Lew Allen, Jr., USAF• July 1977 – April 1981 VADM Bobby Ray Inman, USN• April 1981 – May 1985 Lt Gen Lincoln D. Faurer, USAF• May 1985 – August 1988 Lt Gen William E. Odom, USA• August 1988 – May 1992 VADM William O. Studeman, USN• May 1992 – February 1996 VADM John M. McConnell, USN• February 1996 – March 1999 Lt Gen Kenneth A. Minihan, USAF• March 1999 – April 2005 Lt Gen Michael V. Hayden, USAF• April 2005–present GEN Keith B. Alexander, USA

Notable cryptanalysts

•• Lambros D. Callimahos•• Agnes Meyer Driscoll•• William F. Friedman•• Solomon Kullback•• Robert Morris•• Frank Rowlett•• Abraham Sinkov•• Louis W. Tordella•• Herbert Yardley

NSA encryption systems

STU-III secure telephones on display at the National CryptologicMuseum

NSA is responsible for the encryption-relatedcomponents in these systems:• EKMS Electronic Key Management System• FNBDT Future Narrow Band Digital Terminal• Fortezza encryption based on portable crypto token

in PC Card format• KL-7 ADONIS off-line rotor encryption machine

(post-WWII – 1980s)• KW-26 ROMULUS electronic in-line teletypewriter

encryptor (1960s–1980s)• KW-37 JASON fleet broadcast encryptor (1960s–1990s)• KY-57 VINSON tactical radio voice encryptor• KG-84 Dedicated Data Encryption/Decryption• SINCGARS tactical radio with cryptographically controlled frequency hopping• STE secure terminal equipment• STU-III secure telephone unit, currently being phased out by the STE• TACLANE product line by General Dynamics C4 SystemsNSA has specified Suite A and Suite B cryptographic algorithm suites to be used in U.S. government systems; theSuite B algorithms are a subset of those previously specified by NIST and are expected to serve for most informationprotection purposes, while the Suite A algorithms are secret and are intended for especially high levels of protection.

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In popular cultureSince the existence of the NSA has become more widely known in the past few decades, and particularly since the1990s, the agency has regularly been portrayed in spy fiction. Many such portrayals grossly exaggerate theorganization's involvement in the more sensational activities of intelligence agencies. The agency now plays a role innumerous books, films, television shows, and video games.

References[1] http:/ / www. nsa. gov[4] In a footnote on p. 30 of Body of Secrets (Anchor Books 2002), James Bamford mentions the classified CIA memorandum "Proposed Survey

of Intelligence Activities" (December 10, 1951).[5] David Kahn, The Codebreakers, Scribner Press, 1967, chapter 19, pp. 672–733.[6] A dangerous business (http:/ / www. nsa. gov/ about/ _files/ cryptologic_heritage/ publications/ coldwar/ dangerous_business. pdf), US Navy

and National Reconnaissance during the Cold War, NSA[15] Priest, Dana and Arkin, William, A hidden world, growing beyond control (http:/ / projects. washingtonpost. com/ top-secret-america/

articles/ a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/ 3/ ), Washington Post[17] "Wall Street Journal CEO Council 2010 Annual Meeting." (http:/ / www. c-span. org/ Watch/ Media/ 2010/ 11/ 16/ HP/ A/ 40838/ Wall+

Street+ Journal+ CEO+ Council+ 2010+ Annual+ Meeting. aspx)[18] Richelson, Jeffrey T.; Ball, Desmond (1985). The Ties That Bind: Intelligence Cooperation Between the UKUSA Countries. London: Allen

& Unwin. ISBN 0-04-327092-1[19] Patrick S. Poole, ECHELON: America's Secret Global Surveillance Network (Washington, D.C.: Free Congress Foundation, October 1998)[20] National Security Agency. United States Signals Intelligence Directive 18 (http:/ / cryptome. org/ nsa-ussid18. htm). National Security

Agency July 27, 1993. Last access date March 23, 2007[22] Die Zeit: 40/1999 "Verrat unter Freunden" ("Treachery among friends", German), available at archiv.zeit.de (http:/ / www. zeit. de/ 1999/

40/ 199940. nsa_2_. xml)[23] Report A5-0264/2001 of the European Parliament (English), available at European Parliament website (http:/ / www. europarl. eu. int/ omk/

sipade3?PROG=REPORT& L=EN& PUBREF=-/ / EP/ / TEXT+ REPORT+ A5-2001-0264+ 0+ NOT+ SGML+ V0/ / EN)[26] David Alan Jordan. Decrypting the Fourth Amendment: Warrantless NSA Surveillance and the Enhanced Expectation of Privacy Provided

by Encrypted Voice over Internet Protocol (http:/ / iilj. org/ documents/ Jordan-47_BC_L_Rev_000. pdf). Boston College Law Review. May,2006. Last access date January 23, 2007

[27] http:/ / www. law. cornell. edu/ uscode/ 18/ 793. html#e[28] See refs of Thomas Andrews Drake article[29] Bamford, Shadow Factory, p 325–340[30] James Risen & Eric Lichtblau (December 16, 2005), Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts (http:/ / www. nytimes. com/ 2005/ 12/

16/ politics/ 16program. html), New York Times[31] Gwu.edu (http:/ / www. gwu. edu/ ~nsarchiv/ NSAEBB/ NSAEBB23/ index2. html#doc7)[32] 6th Circuit Court of Appeals Decision (http:/ / fl1. findlaw. com/ news. findlaw. com/ nytimes/ docs/ nsa/ aclunsa70607opn. pdf)[33] on PBS[40][40] Draft NIST SP 800-131, June 2010.

Further reading• James Bamford, Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency, Doubleday, 2001, ISBN

0-385-49907-8.• James Bamford, The Puzzle Palace, Penguin Books, ISBN 0-14-006748-5.• Church Committee, Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans: 1976 US Senate Report on Illegal

Wiretaps and Domestic Spying by the FBI, CIA and NSA, Red and Black Publishers (May 1, 2008).• Hanyok, Robert J. (2002). Spartans in Darkness: American SIGINT and the Indochina War, 1945–1975 (http:/ /

www. fas. org/ irp/ nsa/ spartans/ index. html). National Security Agency. Retrieved November 16, 2008.• Johnson, Thomas R. (2008). American Cryptology during the Cold War (http:/ / www. gwu. edu/ ~nsarchiv/

NSAEBB/ NSAEBB260/ ). National Security Agency: Center for Cryptological History. Retrieved November 16,2008.

• Levy, Steven, Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government—Saving Privacy in the Digital Age– discussion of the development of non-government cryptography, including many accounts of tussles with the

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NSA.• Radden Keefe, Patrick, Chatter: Dispatches from the Secret World of Global Eavesdropping, Random House,

ISBN 1-4000-6034-6.• Liston, Robert A., The Pueblo Surrender: a Covert Action by the National Security Agency, ISBN 0-87131-554-8.• Kahn, David, The Codebreakers, 1181 pp., ISBN 0-684-83130-9. Look for the 1967 rather than the 1996 edition.• Tully, Andrew, The Super Spies: More Secret, More Powerful than the CIA, 1969, LC 71080912.• Bamford, James, New York Times, December 25, 2005; The Agency That Could Be Big Brother (http:/ / www.

nytimes. com/ 2005/ 12/ 25/ weekinreview/ 25bamford. html?pagewanted=all).• Sam Adams, War of Numbers: An Intelligence Memoir Steerforth; new edition (June 1, 1998).• John Prados, The Soviet estimate: U.S. intelligence analysis & Russian military strength, hardcover, 367 pages,

ISBN 0-385-27211-1, Dial Press (1982).• Walter Laqueur, A World of secrets.• Sherman Kent, Strategic Intelligence for American Public Policy.• Matthew Aid, The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency, 432 pages, ISBN

978-1-59691-515-2, Bloomsbury Press (June 9, 2009).

External links• NSA official site (http:/ / www. nsa. gov/ ).• Records of the National Security Agency/Central Security Service (http:/ / www. archives. gov/ research/

guide-fed-records/ groups/ 457. html).• History of NSA (http:/ / history. sandiego. edu/ gen/ 20th/ nsa. html).• The NSA charter (http:/ / history. sandiego. edu/ gen/ text/ coldwar/ nsa-charter. html).• Inside The NSA – The Spy Factory (http:/ / educatedearth. net/ video. php?id=5189) — Documentary via

Educated Earth.• "The Origins of the National Security Agency, 1940–1952" (http:/ / www. thememoryhole. org/ nsa/

origins_of_nsa. htm) — Newly declassified book-length report provided by The Memory Hole (http:/ / www.thememoryhole. org/ ).

• The National Security Archive at George Washington University (http:/ / www. gwu. edu/ ~nsarchiv/ ).• "United States Intelligence Community: Who We Are / NSA section" (http:/ / web. archive. org/ web/

20060925221125/ http:/ / www. intelligence. gov/ 1-members_nsa. shtml). Archived from the original (http:/ /www. intelligence. gov/ 1-members_nsa. shtml) on September 25, 2006.

• First person account of NSA interview and clearance (http:/ / www. fas. org/ irp/ eprint/ nsa-interview. pdf).January 2004.

• James Bamford "Big Brother Is Listening" (http:/ / www. theatlantic. com/ doc/ 200604/ nsa-surveillance). TheAtlantic, April 2006.

• James Bamford Inside the National Security Agency (Lecture) (http:/ / www. prx. org/ pieces/ 19730) AmericanCivil Liberties Union, KUOW-FM, PRX, NPR, February 24, 2007 (53: minutes).

Coordinates: 39°06′32″N 76°46′12″W39.109°N 76.770°W

Article Sources and Contributors 13

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Image Sources, Licenses and Contributorsfile:National Security Agency.svg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:National_Security_Agency.svg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: U.S. Governmentfile:Flag of the National Security Agency.png  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Flag_of_the_National_Security_Agency.png  License: Public Domain  Contributors:Illegitimate BarristerFile:nsa memorial 1.png  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Nsa_memorial_1.png  License: Public Domain  Contributors: User:SreeBotFile:National Security Agency headquarters, Fort Meade, Maryland.jpg  Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:National_Security_Agency_headquarters,_Fort_Meade,_Maryland.jpg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: Avron, ChrisiPK, Concord,Duffman, Graeme artist, Matt Crypto, Multichill, Sanandros, Sissssou, Stinec, Tom, XnatedawgxFile:Intel GreenDoor.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Intel_GreenDoor.jpg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: Director of National Intelligence (DNI) & SpecialSecurity Office, Office of the deputy chief of staff, G-2, PentagonFile:Cray X-MP.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Cray_X-MP.jpg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: NSAFile:National Security Agency.svg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:National_Security_Agency.svg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: U.S. GovernmentFile:STU-IIIphones.nsa.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:STU-IIIphones.nsa.jpg  License: Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 2.5  Contributors: User:MattCrypto

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