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]
↑ "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' " . USA Today . 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" . The Guardian . London. June 8, 2013.
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