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National Security Agency

The National Security Agency (NSA) is an intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and processing of information and data for foreign and domestic intelligence and counterintelligence purposes, specializing in a discipline known as signals intelligence (SIGINT). The NSA is also tasked with the protection of U.S. communications networks and information systems.[8][9] The NSA relies on a variety of measures to accomplish its mission, the majority of which are clandestine.[10] The NSA has roughly 32,000 employees.[11]

For other uses, see National Security Agency (disambiguation).

Agency overview

November 4, 1952 (1952-11-04)[1]

  • Armed Forces Security Agency

"Defending Our Nation. Securing the Future."

Classified (est. 30,000–40,000)[2][3][4][5]

Classified (estimated $10.8 billion, 2013)[6][7]

Originating as a unit to decipher coded communications in World War II, it was officially formed as the NSA by President Harry S. Truman in 1952. Between then and the end of the Cold War, it became the largest of the U.S. intelligence organizations in terms of personnel and budget, but information available as of 2013 indicates that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) pulled ahead in this regard, with a budget of $14.7 billion.[6][12] The NSA currently conducts worldwide mass data collection and has been known to physically bug electronic systems as one method to this end.[13] The NSA is also alleged to have been behind such attack software as Stuxnet, which severely damaged Iran's nuclear program.[14][15] The NSA, alongside the CIA, maintains a physical presence in many countries across the globe; the CIA/NSA joint Special Collection Service (a highly classified intelligence team) inserts eavesdropping devices in high-value targets (such as presidential palaces or embassies). SCS collection tactics allegedly encompass "close surveillance, burglary, wiretapping, [and] breaking and entering".[16]


Unlike the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), both of which specialize primarily in foreign human espionage, the NSA does not publicly conduct human intelligence gathering. The NSA is entrusted with providing assistance to, and the coordination of, SIGINT elements for other government organizations—which are prevented by Executive Order from engaging in such activities on their own.[17] As part of these responsibilities, the agency has a co-located organization called the Central Security Service (CSS), which facilitates cooperation between the NSA and other U.S. defense cryptanalysis components. To further ensure streamlined communication between the signals intelligence community divisions, the NSA Director simultaneously serves as the Commander of the United States Cyber Command and as Chief of the Central Security Service.


The NSA's actions have been a matter of political controversy on several occasions, including its spying on anti–Vietnam War leaders and the agency's participation in economic espionage. In 2013, the NSA had many of its secret surveillance programs revealed to the public by Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor. According to the leaked documents, the NSA intercepts and stores the communications of over a billion people worldwide, including United States citizens. The documents also revealed that the NSA tracks hundreds of millions of people's movements using cellphones' metadata. Internationally, research has pointed to the NSA's ability to surveil the domestic Internet traffic of foreign countries through "boomerang routing".[18]

History[edit]

Formation[edit]

The origins of the National Security Agency can be traced back to April 28, 1917, three weeks after the U.S. Congress declared war on Germany in World War I. A code and cipher decryption unit was established as the Cable and Telegraph Section, which was also known as the Cipher Bureau.[19] It was headquartered in Washington, D.C., and was part of the war effort under the executive branch without direct Congressional authorization. During the course of the war, it was relocated in the army's organizational chart several times. On July 5, 1917, Herbert O. Yardley was assigned to head the unit. At that point, the unit consisted of Yardley and two civilian clerks. It absorbed the Navy's cryptanalysis functions in July 1918. World War I ended on November 11, 1918, and the army cryptographic section of Military Intelligence (MI-8) moved to New York City on May 20, 1919, where it continued intelligence activities as the Code Compilation Company under the direction of Yardley.[20][21]

Collection overseas, which falls under the responsibility of the Global Access Operations (GAO) division.

Domestic collection, which falls under the responsibility of the (SSO) division.

Special Source Operations

Hacking operations, which fall under the responsibility of the (TAO) division.

Tailored Access Operations

The Operations Directorate, which was responsible for SIGINT collection and processing.

The Technology and Systems Directorate, which develops new technologies for SIGINT collection and processing.

The Information Systems Security Directorate, which was responsible for NSA's communications and missions.

information security

The Plans, Policy and Programs Directorate, which provided staff support and general direction for the Agency.

The Support Services Directorate, which provided logistical and administrative support activities.

[114]

Future Narrow Band Digital Terminal[204]

FNBDT

ADONIS off-line rotor encryption machine (post-WWII – 1980s)[205][206]

KL-7

ROMULUS electronic in-line teletypewriter encryptor (1960s–1980s)[207]

KW-26

JASON fleet broadcast encryptor (1960s–1990s)[206]

KW-37

KY-57 tactical radio voice encryptor[207]

VINSON

Dedicated Data Encryption/Decryption[207]

KG-84

secure telephone unit,[207] phased out by the STE[208]

STU-III

. Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency, Random House Digital, Inc., December 18, 2007. ISBN 0-307-42505-3. Previously published as: Doubleday, 2001, ISBN 0-385-49907-8.

Bamford, James

Bauer, Craig P. Secret History: The Story of Cryptology (Volume 76 of Discrete Mathematics and Its Applications). , 2013. ISBN 1-4665-6186-6.

CRC Press

Weiland, Matt and Sean Wilsey. State by State. , October 19, 2010. ISBN 0-06-204357-9.

HarperCollins

War of Numbers: An Intelligence Memoir Steerforth; new edition (June 1, 1998).

Adams, Sam

Mandatory Declassification Review

The Puzzle Palace, Penguin Books, 1982, ISBN 0-14-006748-5.

Bamford, James

"The Agency That Could Be Big Brother", The New York Times, December 25, 2005.

Bamford, James

Bamford, James, , Anchor Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-307-27939-2.

The Shadow Factory

Budiansky, Stephen (2017). Code Warriors: NSA's Codebreakers and the Secret Intelligence War Against the Soviet Union.  978-080-417-097-0.

ISBN

Hanyok, Robert J. (2002). . National Security Agency. Retrieved November 16, 2008.

Spartans in Darkness: American SIGINT and the Indochina War, 1945–1975

Jackson, David (June 18, 2013). . USA Today. Retrieved June 18, 2013.

"Obama: NSA surveillance programs are 'transparent'"

Johnson, Thomas R. (2008). . National Security Agency: Center for Cryptological History. Retrieved November 16, 2008.

American Cryptology during the Cold War

Radden Keefe, Patrick, Chatter: Dispatches from the Secret World of Global Eavesdropping, Random House,  1-4000-6034-6.

ISBN

Strategic Intelligence for American Public Policy.

Kent, Sherman

The Codebreakers, 1181 pp., ISBN 0-684-83130-9. Look for the 1967 rather than the 1996 edition.

Kahn, David

A World of secrets.

Laqueur, Walter

Liston, Robert A., The Pueblo Surrender: A Covert Action by the National Security Agency,  0-87131-554-8.

ISBN

Prados, John, The Soviet estimate: U.S. intelligence analysis & Russian military strength, hardcover, 367 pages,  0-385-27211-1, Dial Press (1982).

ISBN

Perro, Ralph J. "". (Archive) Federation of American Scientists. November 2003. Updated January 2004. – About the experience of a candidate of an NSA job in pre-employment screening. "Ralph J. Perro" is a pseudonym that is a reference to Ralph J. Canine (perro is Spanish for "dog", and a dog is a type of canine)

Interviewing With an Intelligence Agency (or, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Fort Meade)

Shaker, Richard J. "." (Archive Notices. American Mathematical Society. May/June 1992 pp. 408–411.

The Agency That Came in from the Cold

Tully, Andrew, The Super Spies: More Secret, More Powerful than the CIA, 1969, LC 71080912.

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).

Church Committee

"" (video). CNN. June 7, 2013.

Just what is the NSA?

. The Guardian. London. June 8, 2013.

"The NSA Files"

"." George Washington University. National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 260. Posted November 14, 2008.

National Security Agency Releases History of Cold War Intelligence Activities

. The Intercept. London. June 8, 2013.

"The Snowden Archive"

Edit this at Wikidata

Official website

National Security Agency – 60 Years of Defending Our Nation

Records of the National Security Agency/Central Security Service

The National Security Archive at George Washington University

. Archived from the original on September 25, 2006.

"United States Intelligence Community: Who We Are / NSA section"

on the Internet Archive

National Security Agency (NSA) Archive