The NSA was created in 1952, and it conducts
research into all forms of electronic transmissions. It performs global
monitoring, collection, and processing of information and data for foreign and
domestic intelligence, and for counterintelligence purposes, a discipline known
as signals intelligence (SIGINT).
Its
existence was denied until 1975, and employees would refer to the NSA as “No
Such Agency” when asked about it at social gatherings. It is a cryptologic
intelligence agency administered by the Department of Defense, and it often
gets into trouble with freedom-loving Americans due to its mission to collect
and analyze foreign communications, not domestic.
However,
it is also responsible for protecting U.S. government communications and
information systems from foreign spy agencies and hackers, which involves
cryptography. In short, domestically, it monitors U.S. federal agency
computer networks to protect them against such attacks.
It does
not perform field or human intelligence (HUMINT) activities like the CIA does
and its intelligence gathering activities are limited to foreign communications,
although there have been reports that the agency does not always abide by these
laws.
The NSA will probably spy on foreign leaders like it did with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani during the UN General Assembly in New York years ago. Yeah, I know, that's inside the U.S. but I don't care. Expect an NSA "full court press" of spying on unfriendly foreign leaders, wherever they may be, and
that includes intercepting their cellphone calls and bugging their hotel rooms.
Sorry,
Edward Snowden, but I believe the National Security Agency (NSA) spies For us,
not ON us. Here are 6 interesting facts about the super-secret agency:
· The NSA
produces the most intelligence of all the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies.
· Around 21,000
people are employed by the NSA.
· 2013 records
reveal the NSA gathered five billion cellphone location records in a single
day.
· The NSA can
keep records on Americans for up to 5 years.
· Since 2015, the
NSA has lost several hundred hackers, engineers, and data scientists- they left
to work for defense contractors and Silicon Valley tech start-ups.
· The NSA admits
there have been “rare cases” of breaking agency protocols- some employees had
spied on their love interests.
In the MISSION OF VENGEANCE spy thriller, the
NSA does special work for the CIA. Here is a snippet:
Stacey sat at her supercomputer in the bowels
of the National Security Agency headquarters at Fort Meade. The parrot tie
clasp flash drive arrived an hour ago. CBIF’s High-Speed Transport airlines
flew it nonstop from the Dominican Republic to “The Farm,” where two armed
couriers took over and delivered it to her.
She
was a CBIF mole placed inside the NSA and her mission was to drop everything
she was currently working on and crack through the password. General Morrison
contacted her, announcing the OT Level, meaning the president of the United
States was involved.
Both
the NSA and its British counterpart, the GCHQ, inserted secret “back doors”
into software and flash drives of many tech companies. Unfortunately, she found
no back door here. Passwords can also be digitally scrambled and this one
probably was. She would use the NSA’s Brute Force computer algorithm to find
the password.
End of Snippet
Lastly,
enjoy the video NSA OVERVIEW, for a neat description of its SIGINT operations:
Robert Morton is a member of the Association
of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO), enjoys writing about the U.S.
Intelligence Community, and relishes traveling to the Florida Keys and Key
West, the Bahamas and Caribbean. He combines both passions in his CoreyPearson- CIA Spymaster series. Check out his latest spy thriller: MISSION OF VENGEANCE
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