National Security Agency

Dana Priest

Investigative reporter Dana Priest has been The Washington Post's intelligence, Pentagon and health-care reporter. She has won numerous awards, including the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for public service for "The Other Walter Reed" and the 2006 Pulitzer for beat reporting for her work on CIA secret prisons and counterterrorism operations overseas. She is author of the 2003 book, "The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace With America's Military, (W.W. Norton).



THE WASHINTONG POST-

National Security Agency (NSA)
Headquartered in Ft. Meade, Md.
| Official Web site

The National Security Agency (NSA), established in 1952, is the cryptologic organization responsible for protecting U.S. national security information systems and collecting and disseminating foreign signals intelligence (SIGINT). Areas of expertise include cryptanalysis, cryptography, mathematics, computer science and foreign language analysis. NSA is part of the Department of Defense, and is staffed by a combination of civilian and military personnel. NSA’s headquarters is at Fort Meade, Md.

The Signals Intelligence Directorate is responsible for understanding federal government and military intelligence information needs, and for the collection, analysis and production, and dissemination of SIGINT.

Operating under the authority of the defense secretary, the Information Assurance Directorate ensures the availability, integrity, authentication, confidentiality and non-repudiation of national security and telecommunications and information systems (national security systems).

The Central Security Service (CSS) oversees the function of the military cryptologic system, develops policy and guidance on the contributions of military cryptology to the Signals Intelligence/Information Security (SIGINT/INFOSEC) enterprise, and manages the partnership of NSA and the Service Cryptologic Components. NSA as a whole is known as "NSA/CSS."

The NSA/CSS Threat Operations Center monitors the operations of the global network to identify network-based threats and protect U.S. and allied networks.

The National Security Operations Center is a 24/7 operations center that, on behalf of the NSA/CSS, provides total situational awareness across the NSA/CSS enterprise for both foreign SIGINT and Information Assurance, maintains cognizance of national security information needs and monitors unfolding world events.

The Research Directorate conducts research on SIGINT and on information assurance for the U.S. government.
Read full description » Source: Adapted from U.S. government regulations, "U.S. Government Manual", and "An Overview of the U.S. Intelligence Community"
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