Page 278 - Encyclopedia Of Terrorism

N-Kushner.qxd 29-10-02 2:10 PM Page 257

National Security Agency———257

schools. Both the French and the Corsicans now hope SIGINT, which are raw data, to U.S. military commands
that these concessions might support the ending of the and government officials for use in making decisions.
more than 20 years of violence. The use of SIGINT and the breaking of the Japanese
naval code are believed to have directly contributed
Further Reading to shortening World War II by at least one year.
One of the most successful NSA operations was the
“Eurasia.” Patterns of Global Terrorism. U.S. Department
of State Publication, Office of the Secretary of State, VENONA Project—collection and decryption of
Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism. http:// Soviet KGB and GRU messages from the 1940s—that
www.fas.org/irp/threat/terror_97/eurasia.html. provided extraordinary insight into Soviet attempts to
Savigear, Peter. Corsica: Regional Autonomy or Violence? infiltrate the highest levels of the U.S. government.
London: Institute for the Study of Conflict, 1983. During the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, SIGINT pro-
vided the only in-depth information about the Cuban
military buildup to senior policy makers and military
NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY officials. The NSA has had Osama bin Laden’s elec-
tronic communications under constant surveillance
since 1995.
The National Security Council Intelligence Revelations in the 1970s about NSA interception
Directive (NSCID) No. 9, signed by U.S. president of the communications of political activists (opera-
Harry S. Truman on October 24, 1952, established the tions SHAMROCK and MINARET) led to new rules
National Security Agency (NSA). A separate and for U.S. intelligence agencies. Foreign surveillance
extremely secretive agency within the Department operations are regulated by the Foreign Intelligence
of Defense, headquartered at Fort George G. Meade, Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978 (Pub. L. No. 95-511)
Maryland, the NSA is a cryptologic organization, and by the Executive Order 12333 (1981) with full
the world’s best at making and breaking codes and consideration for the privacy rights of U.S. citizens.
ciphers, as well as one of the leading centers of foreign- After the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World
language analysis within the U.S. government. Neither Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon near
the number of employees nor the agency’s budget can Washington, D.C., the intelligence community was crit-
be publicly disclosed, but some analysts estimate that icized for security failures. The NSA admitted that its
its yearly budget is as high as $10 billion. The NSA electronic intelligence and cryptologic tools picked up
does not disclose sources or methods of intelligence massive amounts of information; however, little human
and never comments on media speculations about intelligence (HUMINT) had been deployed to provide
actual or possible intelligence issues. insight into the social and cultural tools of the terrorists.
The agency’s civilian and military employees In the post-Cold War era, the United States has
include physicists, engineers, mathematicians, ana- become highly dependent on networked information
lysts, computer scientists, and linguists. They are systems to conduct essential activities, including mil-
charged with two sensitive activities within the U.S. itary operations and government business; thus
intelligence community: foreign signals intelligence, INFOSEC has come to the fore. NSA is concentrating
that is, interception and analysis of foreign adver- resources in areas such as network security, vulnera-
saries’ communication signals (SIGINT), and infor- bility analysis, data and fiber-optic communications,
mation systems security, that is, computer security of biometrics, and the like in an effort to protect the
classified materials (INFOSEC). The NSA uses national communications, transportation and trans-
bomber planes, sea vessels, submarines, and satellites portation infrastructures, and financial transactions
to gather information, operating a global network from disruption by a physical or electronic attack.
of ground stations to intercept diplomatic, military, The NSA supports strict export rules for encryption
scientific, and commercial satellite communications. technologies to preserve the cryptologic capability of
It also monitors nuclear-related tests and movements. the agency and minimize potential threats to national
SIGINT is used for gathering foreign intelligence security.
as well as for counterintelligence, including the detec-
tion of espionage, sabotage, terrorism, and related See also CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY; COUNTERTERRORISM;
hostile activities of foreign powers. The NSA supplies FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION