If you ’ve seen James Bond or Jason Bourne on the big blind , you might think you know a affair or two about international espionage . The spy game choke on around the Earth are n’t just about irrupt cufflink , gamy - swiftness car chases and zaftig babes , however . If the saga of whistle-blower Edward Snowden teaches us anything , it ’s that American spooks are more interested in look at ream of data and communications – both foreign and domestic – than playing wearing apparel - up and boozing martinis .
This is symbolize by theNational Security Agency(NSA ) . Created in 1952 by rescript of U.S. PresidentHarry S. Truman , the NSA began as a group of 7,600 military and civilian workers running out of a former school in Virginia . In 2013 , it ’s a 30,000 - employee surgery agency that tracks signals and other selective information across the world from a sprawling Fort Meade , Md. , campus and other sites [ informant : NSA ] .
The way is just one cog in the U.S. administration ’s intelligence biotic community , a coalition of 17 different executive branch agencies that work out together and severally to pile up information that Uncle Sam uses to develop foreign relation and protect internal security . While the NSA is often confused with theCIA , there are some conflict between these two undercover agent groups . Historically , the NSA ’s role has been to intercept foreign communications and make and break codes , which it does primarily from its central office . CIA agents , on the other hand , carry covert and counterintelligence cognitive operation out in " the champaign " and often overseas . The edge between each agency ’s operations have blurred over clip , and the agencies are get laid for butting heads [ sources : U.S. Intelligence Community , Levy ] .
The NSA mostly function under a heavy cloud of secrecy until Snowden leak secret entropy about U.S. intelligence agency gather activities to The Guardian and other press outlets . Now that a small light has been shed on the agency , there are quite a few folks who ’d like to bang just what it is this Union surveillance outfit is looking at , especially closer to home .
What the NSA Does
Working alongside theCentral Security Service , a familiar radical comprising active military members , the NSA is task with a wide range of code - fashioning and code - break activities . In other word , the federal agency encrypts closelipped politics communications , datum and other information to protect it fromhackerswhile actively seeking to uncover and decrypt the same type of material from other countries and persons of stake [ sources : NSA , NSA ] .
The theater director of both organizations is appointed by the Secretary of Defense and approve by the president before taking the rein . The film director must be a commissioned military officer with at least a three - star rank and file . This individual also heads U.S. Cyber Command , a " net warfare " unit created in 2005 to protect against terrorist data and electronic web threat [ seed : NSA ] .
The NSA and CSS have two official missions : signals intelligence service – unremarkably known as " SIGINT " – and information assurance . The agencies take in SIGINT from various root , including foreign communications , radarand other electronic system . The work is n’t on the button gentle . entropy is often coded , not to mention share in foreign language and sometimes obscure dialects . Meanwhile , information self-assurance programs are aim at keep others from hack , stealing or otherwise tampering with national security measures system and tender information . NSA is officially responsible for maintaining the protection of the entropy systems used by the Defense Department and several other regime organizations [ source : NSA , NSA ] .
A switch focus toward cyber war has meant an influx of tech - savvy workers joining the NSA ’s ranks . The way hire 3,500 new employees in 2011 and 2012 combined . Many were in field such as computer science , engineering and intelligence psychoanalysis [ reservoir : NSA ] . But technical majors are not always required . For illustration , the NSA read it has hire multitude forcryptanalysis(analyzing information systems to notice hidden aspects ) who majored in music and chronicle as well as maths . In worldwide , professional who are hire for the various NSA positions are placed in development programme where they pay heed classes , get technical training and rotate through departments . The NSA also offer several paid internships to expose college students to its vocation opportunities . For more data and to see available job , visit the NSA’scareers page .
NSA Intelligence Gathering Activities
In its more than 60 - year history , the NSA has gathered intelligence used in a broad span of government exertion from keeping the Suez Canal open to trade come after Egyptian nationalisation in the ' L to intercept primal communications from Russian ships during the Cuban missile crisis . In the latter incident , the CIA discovered that the Soviet Union was preparing to install nuclear load in Cuba . NSA SIGINT after picture that the stakes had been raise when agents learned through cryptography work that the Russians had involve over restraint of Cuban melody vindication ascendance . NSA - gained word halt fears of an all - out nuclear war by showing that Soviet leaders had decide not to challenge a naval quarantine follow out by U.S. force at Cuban ports [ sources : NSA , NSA ] .
Before and during Operation Desert Storm in 1991 , the NSA SIGINT provided intelligence to the U.S. and its allies , as well as secure communications on the battlefield . After the event of9/11 , the NSA came under ardor for fail to catch the plot to assail the World Trade Center . The NSA anticipate that it had intercepted two content that something major was pass to happen on Sept. 11 but there was no information in them on where or what the action would be [ generator : NSA , NSA ] . At the prison term too , the NSA was focused on strange surveillance rather than domesticated surveillance . The NSA was also criticise for failing to keep up with the technological advance need to anticipate terrorism [ source : NOVA ] .
Since then , the NSA has worked firmly to meliorate its technological capabilities , as the people that the office keeps its eye on have changed in many ways . No longer are adversaries potential to be tire a uniform or otherwise pronto identifiable . Instead , person of pastime are often those operating in small cells transmit by cell earpiece and Internet . There is also the fearsome " lone wildcat " working well-nigh on his or her own , like Faizal Shahzad , who was arrested for attempting to bomb Times Square in 2010 [ source : Martin ] .
The events of Sept. 11 , 2001 also changed who the fair game of NSA surveillance would be – it was no longer just people living outside the U.S.
FISA, Its Court and Its Amendments
Enacted in 1978 , theForeign Intelligence Surveillance Actwas largely designed to assure that NSA and other Union intelligence agencies could not supervise American citizen ' electronic communicating without first obtaining a warrantee free-base on likely effort . The act also created an independentForeign Intelligence Surveillance Courtmade up of federal judges tasked with reviewing warrant applications [ source : Greenwald , Federal Judicial Center ] .
Until Edward Snowden ’s leaks , the 11 - appendage FISA court ’s operations were cloaked in as much secrecy as the administration weirdo for which it served as gatekeeper . What we now know is that the logic gate is almost always open : The court deny only 11 of the nearly 34,000 endorsement program it reviewed between 1979 and 2012 . That ’s an approval rate of about 99.97 per centum [ source : Barnes ] .
Meanwhile , lawgiver widened FISA to expand the domesticated snooping the NSA and other intelligence way could do legally . Shortly after the Sept. 11 attack , President George W. Bush – with broad two-way support from Congress – signed into law the USA PATRIOT Act . Among other amendments , the legislation amplify the types of " business records " feds could obtain from companies to admit " any real thing " come to to an investigation to prevail strange intelligence information or protect against terrorism . In a 2002 executive ordination , Bush also specifically authorized the NSA for the first clock time to monitor international east - mails and phone calls from people inside the U.S. When news of the program leak three years by and by , administration functionary said that they still required the NSA to obtain stock-purchase warrant for all domestic communication [ sources : Bazon , Risen ] .
The 2008 FISA Amendments Act largely legitimized the NSA wireless monitoring programme . The amend law , extended by President Barack Obama and Congress for another five years in December 2012 , countenance the feds to monitor U.S. citizens ' communications with foreign national who are the mark of an investigating without first obtaining a warrant . Intelligence gatherer need only prevail a warrant under the legal philosophy where a person in the U.S. is the objective of the investigation or the communicating is wholly domestic [ sources : Granick , Greenwald ] .
The FISA amendment also allow the NSA to collect bulk data , including data " unknowingly get " from completely domestic communications . Just how the government interpreted these victuals was n’t entirely clear until Snowden fetch NSA ’s recent surveillance bodily function to brightness .
Domestic Intelligence Gathering Exposed
The documents Snowden leak detailed two NSA plan antecedently unknown to the cosmopolitan populace . The first involved gathering and reviewing the phone book of millions of Verizon wireless client located in the U.S. A FISA court lodge release in April 2013 want the company to provide information such as the positioning , clock time and duration of calls both within and outside the U.S. , as well as the numbers of both parties on a continuing , daily basis . The order did not , however , compensate the content of any give call [ generator : Greenwald ] .
The Obama administration and others defended the program , citing various personal privacy safeguard as well as its importance to national surety . They specifically noted that the " metadata " obtained did n’t include actual inherent phone communications . As a result , FISA did not ask an individualizedwarrantcovering each someone whose calls were sweep up when the NSA whirl in its last [ source : Roberts and Ackerman ] .
The " it ’s just metadata " logical argument last out the window when Snowden leave out another round of information , this time about government troll of masses ’s electronic communications . In a program called " PRISM , " NSA call for individuals ' Internet info , including search history , the content of einsteinium - mails and live chats and file transfers . consort to a 41 - slide PowerPoint presentation let out by Snowden , the syllabus is melt with the assistance of computing titan like Google , Apple and Facebook , each of which has deny participation . [ source : Greenwald and MacAskill ] .
FISA still bars the feds from stag on Americans ' electronic communications and activities altogether within the U.S. The problem is that it can be operose to tell whether a particular einsteinium - mail , chat or earpiece call is domestic or extraneous . That mean a lot of entropy that is reckon to be off - limits gets " inadvertently " included in the government activity haul [ sources : Drum , Friedersdorf ] .
official boast sure " minimisation procedure " intend to limit the role of wrong gained data and communications . While this information more often than not must be destroyed , a fairly great loophole allows the feds to keep and use the info if it connect to a " threat of harm to people or attribute " [ sources : Drum , Friedersdorf ] .
We would n’t live about these programs if not for Edward Snowden . Who is he , and how did he get his manus on the good ?
Who is Edward Snowden?
He ’s been called a hero and a traitor . The Isle of Man behind what some say are the most crucial and others the most dangerous intelligence leaks in recent U.S. history is a 30 - year - honest-to-god technology worker who did a stint with the CIA before signing on with defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton . Working on an NSA contract in Hawaii , Snowden copied certainclassified documentsand removed them from his berth before telling bosses that he need a few weeks of leave in orderliness to undergo epilepsy treatment . He then holed up in Hong Kong as parole of the NSA spying programs he ’d exposed by send those stolen document to the press unfold like wildfire [ source : Greenwald ] .
recruit in Maryland near NSA headquarters , Snowden earned aGEDbefore enlisting in the Army in 2003 . He was later discharge after bring out his legs in a special forces training programme . According to Snowden , he worked as an NSA security department safety and then in IT security for the CIA . By 2007 , the CIA had station him on appointment to work in Geneva , Switzerland [ rootage : Greenwald ] .
So how did a guy with a GED lift within the ranks of the nation ’s prime undercover agent agency and later move on to a $ 200,000 - a - class ( or $ 122,000 , reckon on who you require ) organisation decision maker gig at Booz Allen ? In an audience with The Guardian , Snowden accredit a natural knack for computer programing and technology work [ sources : Greenwald , The Washington Post ] .
Nevertheless , Snowden rest a comparatively low-down - grade employee on the national intelligence exfoliation before the leak . Some expert have said that he was able to get the entropy he divulged because of the widened sharing among agencies in the wake of Sept. 11 . The leaks are also a dear example of just how much entree Uncle Sam has given private contractors to extremely sensitive information following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon . Roughly 70 percentage of the U.S. intelligence activity residential district ’s budget goes to paying contractors who have been brought on in horde to fill disruption identified following 9/11 . In the post - Snowden era , however , lawmaker are reconsidering the business organization of outsource the tidings work in the beginning intend for the NSA and other governance spy groups [ source : Bussey ] .
Want to find out more about regime intelligence agency gathering mental process ? Take a look at the links on the next varlet .
Lots More Information
I will not use this space to make bold proclamations about whether Ed Snowden did or did not do the correct thing . I will habituate it to fence that NSA should have known that he was doing something that they would not be too happy about . I have in mind issue forth on : look at that peel tone ! The guy lived in Hawaii and he somehow maintain the skin colour of a ghost . If that ’s not the sure sign that a bloke is up to something , I do n’t experience what is .
