Posted on 06/22/2002 7:05:09 AM PDT by PoppingSmoke
WASHINGTON -- Created during the Cold War to protect the United States from surprise attack by the Soviet Union, the National Security Agency, the nation's army of eavesdroppers and code-breakers, finds itself in need of retooling if it is to help defend against far more elusive foes such as Al Qaeda terrorists.
The difficulty of the secretive agency's new task was underscored by leaks this week that the NSA intercepted messages in Arabic the day before the Sept. 11 attacks that apparently foreshadowed that day of carnage. The agency, which intercepts billions of electronic communications each day, did not translate the messages until Sept. 12.
The messages were so simple and cryptic--"Tomorrow is zero day" and "The match begins tomorrow"--that they were virtually useless in telling national security officials where to focus their efforts.
While the CIA and the FBI have been under fire for apparent intelligence lapses prior to Sept. 11, the NSA disclosure brought an unusual degree of attention to an agency accustomed to operating beyond public view.
Adjusting to a new role in a new war, the agency faces difficult changes that its officials acknowledge they must make.
"It's like turning an aircraft carrier in the middle of ocean," said James Bamford, author of two books on the NSA. "You can't make a pinpoint turn. It's an enormous agency filled with people who spent their entire careers focused on the Soviet military and speaking Russian or Ukrainian or one of the Slavic languages.
"Now they're looking at Al Qaeda and Afghanistan and Yemen," Bamford said. "It's enormously difficult to do that. It's not to say they can't or they won't, but it's slow going for them."
Created 50 years ago, the agency had many Russian-speaking analysts. Now, like many other parts of the U.S. intelligence community, the NSA faces a severe shortage of Arabic linguists, analysts said.
In addition, experts said morale has declined in recent years at Crypto City, as many people call the agency's headquarters just outside Washington in Laurel, Md. Part of the problem is that the agency resorted to layoffs as it scaled back with the end of the Cold War, Bamford said. The layoffs were particularly painful for an agency once known for job security.
Review criticizes insularity
A 1999 external review panel created by the agency criticized the NSA for its insularity and stagnation. Traditionally, many employees were hired right out of college. Few middle and senior managers ever came from the private sector.
That resulted in "a lack of new ideas penetrating the agency," according to the panel's report.
Though it remains heavily involved in classified work, agency officials have said the NSA must shake off the deep-seated, secretive culture ingrained since its creation in 1952.
So innate is this thinking that when county planning officials once placed a car-counting device on a roadway near the NSA, armed guards came out from the agency and cut the tube that was stretched across the road, Bamford wrote in his book "Body of Secrets."
Still, change seems to be coming, albeit slowly.
"Just look at the very fact of my presence here tonight," Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, the NSA's director, told a crowd at American University in Washington three years ago. "Our agency benefited in the past from the high walls of security we placed around our activities during the Cold War. However, we've paid a price.
"The media and the public have some misperceptions about our business," he added.
In his American University speech, Hayden blamed movies such as 1998's "Enemy of the State" for spreading the myth of an NSA that spies on U.S. citizens and takes part in chicanery. In the film, which stars Will Smith and Gene Hackman, Smith plays a lawyer who accidentally gains evidence of a politically motivated crime and is pursued by NSA employees who, among other things, eavesdrop on his communications.
Hayden said that federal laws and congressional oversight prevent such actions and that the agency has its own strict rules designed to keep employees from violating civil rights and privacy of other Americans.
Striving for more openness
In another 1999 speech, Hayden emphasized the benefits of more openness. "The American people have to trust us, and in order for them to trust us they have to know about us," he said.
While the NSA now has a more public profile, including a Web site, the agency still keeps many important details under wraps. Its budget and the size of its workforce remain tightly guarded secrets. Estimates of the number of personnel range from 27,000 to 38,000, half of whom are members of the military.
Its sprawling headquarters complex has acres of computers underground. Its parking lot is so vast it has been used for weekend races by a local car club.
For the record, the agency has said that if it were a corporation, it would rank in the top 10 percent in "dollars spent, floor space occupied and personnel employed."
Weighing on all those workers is the knowledge that they are in a war with adversaries whose low-tech approach can put the NSA's impressive technical capabilities at a disadvantage. That was driven home painfully on Sept. 11. The terrorists who hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 out of Dulles International Airport and later crashed it into the Pentagon had stayed close to NSA headquarters.
"The tragic irony is that the morning of the attack, the terrorists leaving the Valencia Motel in downtown Laurel drove south on Route 1 headed to Dulles airport, passing all the NSA employees on the north headed into the NSA to look for terrorists," Bamford said.
Copyright © 2002, Chicago Tribune
Its a very slow process, but NSA is doing a decent job.
That is because, technically, the Brits spy on you then pass to the NSA their information. They get around the law very easily and tell you they don't spy on you with a straight face.
The Threat Board now, has so many possibilities, it makes an over-done Christmas tree look dull. It's a cold world, and we are finally feeling the chill at home.
Shocking! They just want to screw with one of the only intelligence agencies that is working. Overloaded, but working.
If I was NSA, it's bunker time! Lock it down and back door everyone who even thinks about taking a look.
Intel is a very difficult job, made even more difficult with the huge amount of data to go over and especially when politicians leak sources and methods. Clinton's administration, for instance, bragged about intercepting terrorist cell phone calls. Result: Terrorists went back to couriers and avoided cell phones.
You ain't kidding! Its very tough. Politicans don't help it at all. But I will also add that Goss and Shelby were very silent during the Clinton years on those leaks. I did not hear either one of them screaming. We are our own worse enemy.
Though in this case the leak is not as bad as what was leaked by the Clinton Administration. That's where the terrorist got an education. I just think the entire situation was badly handled from the start when the intercepts were first leaked over a week ago.
100% agreement here.
We need to avoid correcting the wanabe's, feeding the trolls, and violating the oath.
FreeRepublic isn't a SCIF.
Agreed, no where on any thread have I let anything out that was not in the public domain in the first place.
You don't want to make bet on this one. It needs to be tightened even more.
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