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National Security Agency
National Security Agency
Seal of the National Security Agency
Flag of the United States National Security Agency
Flag of the National Security Agency
Agency overview
Formed November 4, 1952; ago (1952-11-04)[1]
Preceding agency
  • Armed Forces Security Agency
Headquarters Fort Meade, Maryland, U.S.
39°6′32″N 76°46′17″W / 39.10889°N 76.77139°W / 39.10889; -76.77139
Employees Classified (30,000-40,000 estimate)[2][3][4][5]
Annual budget Classified (estimated $10.8 billion, 2013)[6][7]
Agency executives
Parent agency United States Department of Defense
Website www.nsa.gov

The National Security Agency (NSA) is the main producer and manager of signals intelligence (SIGINT) for the United States government. Estimated to be one of the largest of U.S. intelligence organizations in terms of personnel and budget,[6][8] the NSA operates under the jurisdiction of the Department of Defense and reports to the Director of National Intelligence.

The NSA is tasked with the global monitoring, collection, decoding, translation and analysis of information and data for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes, including surveillance of targeted individuals in U.S. territory. The agency is authorized to accomplish its mission through clandestine means,[9] among which are bugging electronic systems[10] and allegedly engaging in sabotage through subversive software.[11][12] The NSA is also responsible for the protection of U.S. government communications and information systems.[13] As part of the growing practice of mass surveillance in the United States, the NSA collects and stores all phone records of all American citizens.[14]

Unlike the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), both of which specialize primarily in foreign human espionage, the NSA has no authority to conduct human-source intelligence gathering, although it is often portrayed doing so in popular culture. Instead, the NSA is entrusted with coordination and deconfliction of SIGINT components of otherwise non-SIGINT government organizations, which are prevented by law from engaging in such activities without the approval of the NSA via the Defense Secretary.[15]

As part of these streamlining responsibilities, the agency has a co-located organization called the Central Security Service (CSS), which was created to facilitate cooperation between NSA and other U.S. military cryptanalysis components. Additionally, the NSA Director simultaneously serves as the Commander of the United States Cyber Command and as Chief of the Central Security Service.

History[]

Army predecessor[]

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 and Military Intelligence Branch, Section 8 (MI-8). 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 cryptoanalysis functions in July 1918. World War I ended on November 11, 1918, and 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.[16][17]

Black Chamber[]

Western Union money transfer

Western Union allowed MI-8 to monitor telegraphic communications passing through the company's wires until 1929.[18]

MI-8 was also called the Black Chamber.[19] Headed by cryptologist Herbert Yardley, the Black Chamber was located on East 37th Street in Manhattan. Its purpose was to crack the communications codes of foreign governments. Jointly supported by the State Department and the War Department, the chamber persuaded Western Union, the largest U.S. telegram company, to allow government officials to monitor private communications passing through the company’s wires.[20]

Other so called Black Chambers were also found in Europe. They were established by the French and British governments to read the letters of targeted individuals, employing a variety of techniques to surreptitiously open, copy, and reseal correspondence before forwarding it to unsuspecting recipients.[21]

Despite the American Black Chamber's initial successes, it was shut down in 1929 by U.S. Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson, who defended his decision by stating that, "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail".[18]

World War II and its aftermath[]

During World War II, the Signal Security Agency (SSA) was created to intercept and decipher the communications of the Axis powers.[22] When the war ended, the SSA was reorganized as the Army Security Agency (ASA), and it was placed under the leadership of the Director of Military Intelligence.[22]

On May 20, 1949, all cryptologic activities were centralized under a national organization called the Armed Forces Security Agency (AFSA).[22] This organization was originally established within the U.S. Department of Defense under the command of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.[23] The AFSA was tasked to direct Department of Defense communications and electronic intelligence activities, except those of U.S. military intelligence units.[23] However, the AFSA was unable to centralize communications intelligence and failed to coordinate with civilian agencies that shared its interests such as the Department of State, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).[23] In December 1951, President Harry S. Truman ordered a panel to investigate how AFSA had failed to achieve its goals. The results of the investigation led to improvements and its redesignation as the National Security Agency.[24]

The agency was formally established by Truman in a memorandum of October 24, 1952, that revised National Security Council Intelligence Directive (NSCID) 9.[25] Since President Truman's memo was a classified document,[25] the existence of the NSA was not known to the public at that time. Due to its ultra-secrecy the U.S. intelligence community referred to the NSA as "No Such Agency".[26]

References[]

  • Bamford, James. Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency, Random House Digital, Inc., December 18, 2007. ISBN 0307425053. Previously published as: Doubleday, 2001, ISBN 0-385-49907-8.
  • Bauer, Craig P. Secret History: The Story of Cryptology (Volume 76 of Discrete Mathematics and Its Applications). CRC Press, 2013. ISBN 1466561866.
  • Weiland, Matt and Sean Wilsey. State by State. HarperCollins, Oct 19, 2010. ISBN 0062043579.

Notes[]

  1. ↑ Page 97.http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/cryptologic_histories/origins_of_nsa.pdf
  2. ↑ "60 Years of Defending Our Nation" (PDF). National Security Agency. 2012. p. 3. http://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic_heritage/60th/book/NSA_60th_Anniversary.pdf. Retrieved July 6, 2013.  "On November 4, 2012, the National Security Agency (NSA) celebrates its 60th anniversary of providing critical information to U.S. decision makers and Armed Forces personnel in defense of our Nation. NSA has evolved from a staff of approximately 7,600 military and civilian employees housed in 1952 in a vacated school in Arlington, VA, into a workforce of more than 30,000 demographically diverse men and women located at NSA headquarters in Ft. Meade, MD, in four national Cryptologic Centers, and at sites throughout the world."
  3. ↑ Priest, Dana (July 21, 2013). "NSA growth fueled by need to target terrorists". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-growth-fueled-by-need-to-target-terrorists/2013/07/21/24c93cf4-f0b1-11e2-bed3-b9b6fe264871_story.html. Retrieved July 22, 2013.  "Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, its civilian and military workforce has grown by one-third, to about 33,000, according to the NSA. Its budget has roughly doubled."
  4. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named Introv
  5. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named employees
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Gellman, Barton; Greg Miller (August 29, 2013). "U.S. spy network’s successes, failures and objectives detailed in ‘black budget’ summary". The Washington Post. p. 3. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/black-budget-summary-details-us-spy-networks-successes-failures-and-objectives/2013/08/29/7e57bb78-10ab-11e3-8cdd-bcdc09410972_story.html. Retrieved August 29, 2013. 
  7. ↑ Shane, Scott (August 29, 2013). "New Leaked Document Outlines U.S. Spending On Intelligence Agencies". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/30/us/politics/leaked-document-outlines-us-spending-on-intelligence.html?hp&pagewanted=all. Retrieved August 29, 2013. 
  8. ↑ Bamford, James. Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency, Random House Digital, Inc., December 18, 2007
  9. ↑ Executive Order 13470 — [1] 2008 Amendments to Executive Order 12333], United States Intelligence Activities, July 30, 2008 (PDF)
  10. ↑ Malkin, Bonnie. NSA surveillance: US bugged EU offices. The Daily Telegraph, June 30, 2013
  11. ↑ Ngak, Chenda. NSA leaker Snowden claimed U.S. and Israel co-wrote Stuxnet virus, CBS, July 9, 2013
  12. ↑ Bamford, James. The Secret War, Wired Magazine, June 12, 2013.
  13. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named Nakashima
  14. ↑ "Senators: Limit NSA snooping into US phone records". Associated Press. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/senators-limit-nsa-snooping-us-phone-records. Retrieved 15 October 2013. ""Is it the goal of the NSA to collect the phone records of all Americans?" Udall asked at Thursday's hearing. "Yes, I believe it is in the nation's best interest to put all the phone records into a lockbox that we could search when the nation needs to do it. Yes," Alexander replied." 
  15. ↑ Executive Order 13470 — 2008 Amendments to Executive Order 12333, United States Intelligence Activities, Section C.2, July 30, 2008
  16. ↑ "The National Archives, Records of the National Security Agency". http://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/457.html. Retrieved November 22, 2013. 
  17. ↑ "The Many Lives of Herbert O. Yardley". http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/cryptologic_spectrum/many_lives.pdf. Retrieved December 5, 2013. 
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Hastedt, Glenn P.; Guerrier, Steven W. (2009). Spies, wiretaps, and secret operations: An encyclopedia of American espionage. ABC-CLIO. p. 32. ISBN 1851098070. 
  19. ↑ Yardley, Herbert O. (1931). The American black chamber. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1591149894. 
  20. ↑ James Bamford. "Building America’s secret surveillance state". Reuters. http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/06/10/building-americas-secret-surveillance-state/. Retrieved 9 November 2013. 
  21. ↑ "Roman Empire to the NSA: A world history of government spying". BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24749166. Retrieved 9 November 2013. "Across Europe, they established departments called "black chambers" (from the French, cabinet noir) to read the letters of targeted individuals." 
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 "Army Security Agency Established, 15 September 1945". United States Army. http://www.army.mil/article/110544/. Retrieved 9 November 2013. 
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 23.2 Burns, Thomas L.. "The Origins of the National Security Agency 1940–1952 (U)" (PDF). National Security Agency. p. 60. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB278/02.PDF. Retrieved August 11, 2010. 
  24. ↑ "The Creation of NSA - Part 2 of 3: The Brownell Committee" (PDF). National Security Agency. http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/crypto_almanac_50th/The_Creation_of_NSA_Part_3.pdf. Retrieved July 2, 2013. 
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 Truman, Harry S. (October 24, 1952). "Memorandum" (PDF). National Security Agency. http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/truman/truman_memo.pdf. Retrieved July 2, 2013. 
  26. ↑ Anne Gearan. "‘No Such Agency’ spies on the communications of the world". The Washington Post. http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-06-06/world/39779097_1_intelligence-agencies-communications-secrecy. Retrieved 9 November 2013. 

Further reading[]

External links[]

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