Word: nsa
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Washington and its National Security Agency came up with a solution: an automated system that did not put people at risk. The NSA has a team of covert operatives who work with agents in the CIA's Science and Technology Directorate to manufacture the highly sophisticated ground scanners and signal interceptors that the U.S. plants in foreign countries. To intercept signals, the NSA and S&T teams developed miniaturized monitors that are concealed in everyday objects such as lamps, phones, signposts, building gutters and commercial electric equipment. The CIA even has its own secret factory, which produces microbatteries no bigger...
...March 1998, Defense Intelligence Agency agents slipped into Baghdad as UNSCOM operatives to install the devices covertly. The new devices were unmanned, hidden in seemingly benign objects--relieving inspectors of the dangerous backpacks. Signals intercepted by the new hardware were beamed up to a satellite and downloaded to the NSA's headquarters at Fort Meade in Maryland. The agency then used supercomputers that were alerted to key words to help "listen" to conversations and edit out irrelevant chatter...
...officials concede that the NSA buglets did record information that could be used to track Saddam's security team and provide details on possible bombing targets. But it provided no more than incremental help. After all, the U.S. was already focusing massive intelligence resources against Iraq, so the contribution of a few small taps was like the patter of raindrops on a lake. Explains a senior intelligence official: "There was useful information, but it helped us only moderately." Anyway, asks another senior spy, if they happened to pick up something interesting, "are we supposed to put our fingers...
...decision had a wide-ranging impact on the intelligence community. Judge Johnson enlightened NSA's personnel to the fact that they were not exempt from the law and that the information placed in my personal security file, and in those of all NSA employees, had to be accurate, complete, timely and relevant in accordance with the Privacy Act. The public can rest assured that any ruling by Judge Johnson in Starr's investigation into the President's activities will once again reflect the dictates of law, truth and fairness. ALBERT I. MURPHY Beltsville...
...pouch could also have contained the daily digest of National Security Agency intercepts gathered by ultrasecret satellites and listening devices. These often bear the special code-word classification UMBRA, a category beyond TOP SECRET, reserved for the most sensitive electronic intelligence. Most riveting would have been pages of NSA intercepts dealing with Iraq. Typically, the NSA targets not only hostile countries but also U.S. allies...