The sound of silence?
America's elite eavesdropping agency faces an uncertain future
By Warren P. Strobel
At 7 p.m. on January 24, the massive electronic brain of the U.S. intelligence system
hiccuped, sighed, then shut down. In a twinkling, billions of dollars' worth of
supercomputers, high-speed modems, and top-secret electronics fell silent. The central
data network of the National Security Agency in leafy Fort Meade, Md., would remain
that way for an agonizing three days�an unprecedented event in the history of the
nation's intelligence services.
The computer failure illustrates the perilous state of the NSA, but it also shows how
America's role in the high-stakes game of intelligence collection has changed since
the end of the Cold War. During the decades-long face- off between Washington and
Moscow, human spies grabbed the headlines and captured the public's imagination. But
it was in the field of signals intelligence�SIGINT in the argot of the spy trade�where
America had the real edge. And that was because of the NSA. Since Harry Truman created
it in 1952, the supersecret eavesdropping agency (the joke was that the letters stood
for "no such agency") has scooped up electronic signals from everything from faxes and
phone calls to radar waves and missile launches. At its closely guarded campus in
Maryland, teams of linguists and analysts decoded the data and determined what they
meant. The resulting reports, among the most highly classified in the government, were
devoured by presidents, generals, and cabinet secretar!
!
!
!
ies. Around the globe, the NSA plucked countless secrets from the air. It was a weapon
none could match.
Now, however, the NSA and America's intelligence community face a crisis of
existential proportions. A number of current and former NSA officials broke their
customary code of silence to speak to U.S. News about the agency and its future. All
say America's security will be increasingly at risk if the NSA does not manage to pull
itself into the future�and soon. "We've run out of time," one official says. "The
world changed on us, and we didn't change the talent, the culture, the technology fast
enough."
The enemy within. The technology challenges should have come as no surprise. Enemies
who once communicated over the airwaves now use underground fiber-optic cable.
Encryption software that creates nearly unbreakable codes is available to businessmen
and bad guys, depriving the NSA of an edge it enjoyed for decades. The sheer volume of
the data gathered by the agency�millions and millions of feet of tape recordings�far
outstrips the ability of its analysts to keep up.
But the NSA's biggest enemy may be itself. Larger and more hidebound than the CIA
(with its $3.6 billion-a-year budget and 38,000 workers worldwide, it is the largest
employer in Maryland), the NSA has stubbornly resisted change. For decades, NSA
headquarters was cut off from the outside world. Technologically, its elite employees
were miles ahead of the rest of the world. So much so, it seems, that they discounted
the technology revolution roaring around them. "There is . . . a total inability to
come to grips with what's happening to us," an official says. "There is an incredible
self-centered arrogance about how brilliant we are, how successful we've been for the
nation. That's all true, but it's blinding us to the future."
That smugness lay behind last month's computer failure. Two years ago, the Senate
Intelligence Committee ordered its technical advisory group to study the NSA. The
experts found an agency "in desperate need of organizational restructuring and
modernization of its information technology infrastructure," committee chairman Sen.
Richard Shelby said. Sources tell U.S. News that private contractors warned the NSA's
Q Group that its proposed design to begin upgrading its data networks, a project
dubbed Light Core, would not work. The NSA went ahead with it anyway. Today the system
requires frequent technological band-aids.
The most damning assessment of the NSA's recent management came from two study panels
that its new director, Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, convened before launching
what may be a do-or-die effort to shake up the agency. "The individual capabilities at
NSA far surpass the totality," one report concluded. The implication: The agency's
mathematicians, linguists, analysts, and technologists are being impeded by their own
institution.
Listening in. Surprisingly, the NSA's intelligence failures have been relatively
few�so far. But more crises loom because of the proliferation of encryption
technology. "The crypto revolution is, in some ways, a storm out to sea," says former
NSA general counsel Stewart Baker. "But one day, it's going to roar in and just wipe
out large chunks of what the agency does."
The NSA still performs well in emergencies like Kosovo, officials say. But while it
can marshal its forces to cover individual targets, officials say the NSA is stretched
so thin that it no longer provides the sustained reporting vital for early warnings to
U.S. officials.
Ironically, this should be the golden age of electronic espionage. Global com-
munications have explod- ed in a dizzying array of mobile phones, Internet nodes, and
computer networks, providing rich targets for Fort Meade's electronics wizards.
But the NSA seems ill-prepared for the new opportunities. The world it once knew so
well suddenly went C2C�that's geekspeak for "computer to computer," a networked planet
where good guys and bad guys communicate on the same electronic grid. The NSA,
however, still relies heavily on eavesdropping satellites built for the Soviet era.
The result? The NSA intelligence "catch" becomes less useful each year.
Staffing is another problem. In recent years, the NSA has lost 7,000 employees, mostly
intelligence analysts and linguists whose skills take years to replace. Thanks to a de
facto policy against layoffs, the NSA has a work force that doesn't have all the
skills it needs and has some skills that are now obsolete.
Congress and the White House share blame for neglecting an agency once showered with
funds. NSA's classified capital budget has been chopped 35 percent in the past eight
years, one source says. While it has received small increases the past two years, it
will have to risk cutting back on intelligence it provides U.S. leaders now.
That's not all. The NSA will have to de-emphasize passive intelligence collection from
a distance in favor of more-intrusive methods because of encryption and other
advances, officials inside and outside the agency said. That means electronic high
jinks of a type usually associated with the CIA: swiping computer passwords, spreading
software viruses, infiltrating listening devices into enemy communications systems.
Some see as a model for the NSA's future an even more secretive (and unacknowledged)
U.S. agency, the Special Collection Service. Staffed jointly by CIA and NSA
operatives, its elite teams of eavesdroppers are dispatched on covert missions
worldwide.
Even if the NSA is up to the challenge, it's not clear the country is. The House may
hold hearings this year on Echelon, a global scanning system operated by the NSA and
its counterparts in Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Critics say Echelon
is used to steal trade secrets from nonparticipants and allows the five countries to
monitor one another's citizens. (The charge is ironic. Even congressional watchdogs
say the NSA abides scrupulously by 1970s laws against spying on Americans.) Still,
obtaining quality signals intelligence in the years ahead will certainly mean taking
more risks, and the cost of failure could be high for the NSA's eavesdroppers. "I'm
just not sure the government and the people will back them up if they get caught doing
it," says Baker, the NSA's former general counsel.
In the bubble. Not surprisingly, given the arcane nature of its work, the NSA is a
peculiar place to work. "You can always tell an NSA extrovert," an agency joke goes.
"He looks at your shoe tips instead of his." There's a darker side to the NSA's
insular bureaucratic culture, though. Risk-taking is sapped, officials say, by zealous
internal investigators who pounce on minor infractions (the agency has almost 100
lawyers). Endless hours are spent in a byzantine system to achieve perfect fairness in
promotions. (The NSA had 485 promotion boards until Hayden disbanded most of them.)
Reforming the NSA won't be easy, but Hayden is trying. In a six-minute address to
agency employees on November 15, Hayden announced what he called "100 Days of Change."
He then moved rapidly, creating his own small leadership team to enforce reforms.
Layoffs, he warned, were now a possibility�if that's what is needed to make the agency
work. Inside the NSA's sleek Ops 2B headquarters building, an elevator traditionally
reserved for executives is now available for all employees to use.
"DIRgrams." Most strikingly, as director, Hayden has tried to open up the NSA and
break down the wall of secrecy that has deprived it of both a Washington constituency
and private-sector innovations. Hayden, who broadcasts his moves in regular "DIRgrams"
to the NSA work force, went to the investment firm Legg Mason Wood Walker Inc. to fill
a new top slot, chief financial manager. "The agency needs to do some adapting,"
Hayden said in an interview. The pillars it rested on during the Cold War "are now all
up for grabs."
Hayden, 54, has received strong reviews from a worried Congress�and strong initial
resistance from some of the agency's civilian oligarchs. "Their response to '100 Days
of Change' has been business as usual," says one official. Among the most caustic
defenders of the agency's old ways has been his civilian deputy, Barbara McNamara.
U.S. News was told that members of the NSA Advisory Board, an outside panel of
military and industry leaders, recommended to Hayden that he replace her. He has yet
to do so.
With its military director rotating every three years, the NSA is run in practice by
civilian career employees. A former top official recalled having to explain to an
incredulous agency director, a three-star officer, why his orders weren't being
followed. "They're so used to people coming and going, there's a tendency to wait for
a while," the official said.
In the end, all the new technology may prove to be the least of the NSA's problems.
"Overcoming technological challenge is what NSA does best," says a top intelligence
official. Acknowledging it no longer has all the answers may be harder.
� U.S.News & World Report Inc. All rights reserved.
