National Security Agency: Difference between revisions

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The NSA is extremely active in cryptology, and cryptanalysis. The agency creates codes and ciphers for its government to use, and attempts to break the codes and ciphers of foreign nations.

The NSA is rumored to run the ECHELON communications-monitoring system, together with equivalent signals-intelligence agencies in Britain (GCHQ) and Australia DSD). The system's capabilities are suspected to include the ability to monitor a large proportion of the world's telephone, fax and data traffic, according to a December 16, 2005 article in the ''[[American Newspapers|New York Times]]''.

The NSA is rumored to run the ECHELON communications-monitoring system, together with equivalent signals-intelligence agencies in Britain (GCHQ) and Australia DSD). The system's capabilities are suspected to include the ability to monitor a large proportion of the world's telephone, fax and data traffic, according to a December 16, 2005 article in the ''[[American Newspapers|New York Times]]''. As of the Edward Snowden revelations of 2013-2014, this is no longer rumor; the NSA is now known to have been and continues to be conducting vast data-acquisition programs against practically every form of communication known to man, with very little oversight. The head of the NSA was actually caught lying to Congress about the staggering scope of the NSA's various programs. At the time of this writing they are rapidly gaining a reputation as a rogue agency that believes its mission puts it above the law and the United States Constitution.

Naturally, in addition to civilian traffic, they also listen in on foreign military and diplomatic traffic as well.

As of 2008, NSA has been directed to help monitor U.S. federal agency computer networks to protect them against attacks.

Since its inception to the present day, the NSA is rumored to have the most powerful collection of computers in the world. While the exact entirety of what they now have is classified, a number of supercomputers they used that they now consider obsolete are in the United States National Cryptologic Museum.

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The creation of NSA was authorized in a letter written by President [[Harry Truman|Harry S. Truman]] in June 1952. The agency was formally established through a revision of National Security Council Intelligence Directive (NSCID) 9 on October 24, 1952, and officially came into existence on November 4, 1952. President Truman's letter was itself classified and remained unknown to the public for more than a generation.

Before the NSA proper was The Black Chamber, so called in part because of the book about it. It was established in [[World War One]] and had a cover as a civilian coding agency. During the 20's funding was pulled because the secretary of state considered decryption to be unfair. Denied funding, the head of it wrote a book about it and tried to keep it open.

Before the NSA proper was The Black Chamber, so called in part because of [[The Black Chamber|the book about it]]. It was established in [[World War One]] and had a cover as a civilian coding agency. During the 20's funding was pulled because the secretary of state considered decryption to be unfair. Denied funding, the head of it wrote a book about it and tried to keep it open.

For a long period of time, the U.S. government denied the existence of the NSA, thus the "No Such Agency" moniker.<ref> The NSA was listed in the 1957 and subsequent editions of the U.S. Government Manual, which was available in most public libraries</ref>

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~~===~~ NSA in fiction: ~~===~~

== Anime ==

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* The 2007 film ''[[The Simpsons]] Movie'' depicts the NSA listening to and transcribing every telephone and public conversation in the US. This leads to Marge, Lisa, Bart and Maggie's capture by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

* The 2008 film ''[[Harold and Kumar]] Escape from Guantanamo Bay'' has the Vice Chairman of the NSA providing a rational counterpoint to a rabid Homeland Security agent.

== Literature ==

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** The agency also appears or is referenced in several [[Jack Ryan]] novels.

* David Suarez's novel, ''[[Daemon]]'', features the NSA heavily given that the plot of the book involves tracking down a network of rogue computer programs. They are positions as being the most tech savy of the three letter agencies - Agent Natalie Philips of the NSA is the lead on the case and she is one of the book's protagonists.

* [[The Black Chamber]] was the book about the precursor organization existing before [[World War Two]].

* ''[[The Black Chamber]]'' was the book about the precursor organization existing before [[World War Two]].

* One of the former special forces operatives hired by Mike Harmon (no, not [[JAG|that one]]) to serve as the head of intelligence for the Keldara, in the ''[[Paladin of Shadows (Literature)|Paladin of Shadows]]'' series, is mentioned to have previously worked for the NSA.

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== [[Web Comics]] ==

* Infiltrated by the world's greatest hacker in this [http://xkcd.com/343/ xkcd] strip.

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