National Security Agency

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The National Security Agency is the US intelligence agency responsible for signals intelligence and information assurance.[1]

People

Directors

The NSA and the UK

Relationship with GCHQ

The NSA has long had particularly close links with its British counterpart, GCHQ. In the early 1980s it was suggested that "the relationship between NSA and GCHQ is stronger than any between the NSA and any other American intelligence agency."[4]

Collection in the UK

This relationship does not prevent the NSA spying on the UK. According to Howard Teicher, the former Middle East director of the US National Security Council, the NSA monitored Britain's Al-Yamamah arms deal with Saudi Arabia from its base at Menwith Hill in Yorkshire.[5]

Notes

  1. About NSA, Frequently Asked Questions, National Security Agency, accessed 1 September 2009.
  2. Former Directors, National Security Agency, accessed 1 September 2009.
  3. NSA/CSS Welcomes LTG Keith B. Alexander, USA, National Security Agency, 30 July 2005.
  4. Jonathan Bloch and Patrcik Fitzgerald, British Intelligence and Covert Action, Brandon, 1983, p.64.
  5. Michael Smith, The Spying Game, Politico's, 2003, p.429.