National Security Agency

Seal of the National Security Agency

The National Security Agency (NSA) is part of the US government. The agency was started in 1952, and its main office is in Maryland.

Its stated goal is to protect the US people by

Worldwide "earsdropping," secretly listening to what people are saying in other countries. It monitors, collects, decodes, translates and analyses information and data. That is known as signals intelligence (SIGINT).
Protecting the US from eavesdropping and SIGINT spying by foreign governments and agencies, called "penetration and network warfare."^[1]^[2] The agency does so by clandestine (secret) means,^[3] such as bugging electronic systems,^[4] and sabotaging their computer networks with viral software.^[5]^[6]

National Security Agency Media

Black Chamber cryptanalytic work sheet for solving Japanese diplomatic cipher, 1919
Protesters against NSA data mining in Berlin wearing Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden masks
PRISM: a clandestine surveillance program under which the NSA collects user data from companies like Microsoft and Facebook.
Paul M. Nakasone, the director of the NSA.
Defense Security Service (DSS) polygraph brochure given to NSA applicants
Headquarters at Fort Meade circa 1950s
National Security Agency headquarters in Fort Meade, 2013
Due to massive amounts of data processing, NSA is the largest electricity consumer in Maryland.
Excerpt of James Clapper's testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

↑ "About NSA: Mission". National Security Agency. Retrieved September 14, 2014.
↑ Nakashima, Ellen. January 26, 2008. Bush order expands network monitoring. The Washington Post. Retrieved February 9, 2008. [1]
↑ Executive Order 13470 — 2008 Amendments to Executive Order 12333, United States Intelligence Activities, July 30, 2008 (PDF)
↑ Malkin, Bonnie. NSA surveillance: US bugged EU offices. The Daily Telegraph, June 30, 2013
↑ Ngak, Chenda. NSA leaker Snowden claimed U.S. and Israel co-wrote Stuxnet virus Archived 2013-09-27 at the Wayback Machine, CBS, July 9, 2013
↑ Bamford, James. The Secret War, Wired Magazine, June 12, 2013.

Bamford, James, The Puzzle Palace, Penguin Books, ISBN 0-14-006748-5.
Bamford, James, The Shadow Factory, Anchor Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-307-27939-2.
Church Committee, 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).
Hanyok, Robert J. (2002). Spartans in Darkness: American SIGINT and the Indochina War, 1945–1975. National Security Agency. Retrieved November 16, 2008.
Aid, Matthew, The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency, 432 pages, ISBN 978-1-59691-515-2, Bloomsbury Press (June 9, 2009).
Shaker, Richard J. "The Agency That Came in from the Cold." (Archive, Archive #2) Notices. American Mathematical Society. May/June 1992 pp. 408–411.
Jackson, David (June 18, 2013). Obama: NSA surveillance programs are 'transparent'. https://www.usatoday.com/story/theoval/2013/06/18/obama-charlie-rose-program-nsa-surveillance/2433549/. Retrieved June 18, 2013.
"National Security Agency Releases History of Cold War Intelligence Activities." George Washington University. National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 260. Posted November 14, 2008.
The NSA Files. London. June 8, 2013. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/the-nsa-files.