National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 24

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The National Security Agency Declassified Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson assisted by Michael L. Evans January 13, 2000

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Updates

March 11, 2005 Internet wiretapping mixes "protected" and targeted messages Info Age requires rethinking 4th Amendment limits and policies, National Security Agency told Bush administration

October 6, 2000 Current version of USSID 18 (July 27, 1993) Governs NSA's interception of communications involving U.S. persons

June 22, 2000 NSA Restrictions on reporting identities of U.S. persons See documents 7a-7f and 16

    The National Security Agency (NSA) is one of the most secret (and secretive) members of the U.S. intelligence community. The predecessor of NSA, the Armed Forces Security Agency (AFSA), was established within the Department of Defense, under the command of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on May 20, 1949. In theory, the AFSA was to direct the communications intelligence and electronic intelligence activities of the military service signals intelligence units (at the time consisting of the Army Security Agency, Naval Security Group, and Air Force Security Service). In practice, the AFSA had little power, its functions being defined in terms of activities not performed by the service units.¹

    The creation of NSA resulted from a December 10, 1951, memo sent by Walter Bedell Smith to James B. Lay, Executive Secretary of the National Security Council. The memo observed that "control over, and coordination of, the collection and processing of Communications Intelligence had proved ineffective" and recommended a survey of communications intelligence activities. The proposal was approved on December 13, 1951, and the study authorized on December 28, 1951. The report was completed by June 13, 1952. Generally known as the "Brownell Committee Report," after committee chairman Herbert Brownell, it surveyed the history of U.S. communications intelligence activities and suggested the need for a much greater degree of coordination and direction at the national level. As the change in the security agency's name indicated, the role of the NSA was to extend beyond the armed forces.²

    In the last several decades some of the secrecy surrounding NSA has been stripped away by Congressional hearings and investigative research. Most recently NSA has been the subject of criticism for failing to adjust to the post-Cold War technological environment as well as for operating a "global surveillance network" alleged to intrude on the privacy of individuals across the world. The following documents provide insight into the creation, evolution, management and operations of NSA, including the controversial ECHELON program.  Also included are newly released documents (7a - 7f) that focus on the restrictions NSA places on reporting the identities of U.S. persons – including former president Jimmy Carter and first lady Hillary Clinton, and NSA Director Michael Hayden's unusual public statement (Document 16) before the House Intelligence Committee.

    Several of these documents also appear in either of two National Security Archive collections on U.S. intelligence. The U.S. Intelligence Community: Organization, Operations and Management: 1947-1989 (1990) and U.S. Espionage and Intelligence: Organization, Operations, and Management, 1947-1996 (1997) publish together for the first time recently declassified documents pertaining to the organizational structure, operations and management of the U.S. Intelligence Community over the last fifty years, cross-indexed for maximum accessibility. Together, these two sets reproduce on microfiche over 2,000 organizational histories, memoranda, manuals, regulations, directives, reports, and studies, totalling more than 50,000 pages of documents from the Office of the Director of Central Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, military service intelligence organizations, National Security Council, and other official government agencies and organizations.

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Notes

1. Report to the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense by a Special Committee Appointed Pursuant to Letter of 28 December 1951 to Survey Communications Intelligence Activities of the Government, June 13, 1952, pp. 47-48, 119; RG 457, SR-123, Military Reference Branch, NARA; The National Cryptologic School, On Watch: Profiles from the National Security Agency's Past 40 Years (Ft. Meade, Md.: NCS, 1986), p. 17.

2. Walter Bedell Smith, "Proposed Survey of Communications Intelligence Activities," December 10, 1951; Report to the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense by a Special Committee, p. 118; U.S. Congress, Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Final Report, Book III: Foreign and Military Intelligence (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976), p. 736; National Security Agency/Central Security Service, NSA/CSS Manual 22-1 (Ft. Meade, MD: NSA, 1986), p. 1.