National Security Agency

The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) was established by a memorandum dated October 24, 1952, by President Harry S. Truman. The NSA was established as "the organization within the U.S. Government responsible for communications intelligence (COMINT) activities."[1] See original charter for the NSA.

The NSA is "the Nation's cryptologic organization. It coordinates, directs, and performs highly specialized activities to protect U.S. information systems and produce foreign intelligence information. A high technology organization, NSA is on the frontiers of communications and data processing. It is also one of the most important centers of foreign language analysis and research within the Government."

• Signals Intelligence (SIGINT)
• Information Systems Security (INFOSEC) - "protecting all classified and sensitive information that is stored or sent through U.S. Government equipment."
• R&D - Research and development programs: "cryptanalytic research led to the first large-scale computer and the first solid-state computer, predecessors to the modern computer."
• NSA "employs the country's premier codemakers and codebreakers."

"Most NSA/CSS employees, both civilian and military, are headquartered at Fort Meade, Maryland, centrally located between Baltimore and Washington, DC. Its workforce represents an unusual combination of specialties: analysts, engineers, physicists, mathematicians, linguists, computer scientists, researchers, as well as customer relations specialists, security officers, data flow experts, managers, administrative and clerical assistants."[2]

Director: Lieutenant General Michael V. Hayden

Related SourceWatch Resources

• Central Intelligence Agency
• Department of Homeland Security
• homeland defense
• homeland security
• National Security Council
• Operations Coordinating Board
• psyops

External Links

• Wikipedia: National Security Agency.
• BBC Profile of National Security Agency.
• Defense Daily Biographies.
• National Security Agency at intelligence.gov.
• National Security Agency: "The largest and most secret of the intelligence agencies of the U.S. government, the National Security Agency (NSA), with headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland, has two main functions: to protect U.S. government communications and to intercept foreign communications."