Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency (79 page)

Although
it's unlikely that any study exists to substantiate the proposition, there
appears to be a direct correlation between codebreaking and appetite. When the
new OPS 1 cafeteria opened on December 15, 1993, a total of 9,743 people showed
up. Before they left they consumed 2,127 tacos and enchiladas from the Taco
Bell stand, 176 pounds of salad, and about 20,000 other items. In 1993, food
sales totaled more than $7 million—and employees dropped another $2 million in
quarters into the city's 380 vending machines.

To help
residents convert their nachos and deep-dish pizzas from a solid into a liquid
by means of sweat, half a dozen SHAPE Fitness Centers—16,000 square feet of
floor space—are located in the invisible city. There, residents can exercise to
their cardiovascular delight on Stair-Masters, treadmills, LifeCycles, Nordic
Tracks, stationary and recumbent bikes, rowers, cross-country-ski simulators,
upper-body ergometers, gravitrons and Cybex resistance equipment. In the OPS 2B
Building every Tuesday and Thursday morning, technospooks are taught to carry
the tiger to the mountain, grasp the bird's tail, wave their hands like clouds,
step back and repulse the monkey, and perform more than fifty other intricate
moves of Tai Chi. Other courses include Shorinji Kempo Martial Arts,
Plyometrics Training, and Flexible Strength, a yoga-type class. SHAPE also
sponsors an annual 5K run for city residents. After a hard day of stressful
codebreaking, SHAPE offers "seated massage therapy" by licensed
massage therapists at a cost of $1 a minute, or guided meditation for free.

Crypto
City also has a unique collection of professional associations, known as
Learned Organizations. One of the first established was the Crypto-Linguistic
Association, which itself has a number of subgroups. The members of the Special
Interest Group on Lexicography (SIGLEX), for example, strive to push ahead the
state of the art of dictionary and glossary making, including even dictionaries
for unwritten languages. Two other special interest groups are SIGVOICE,
concentrating on topics ranging from accents to spoonerisms, and SIGTRAN,
dedicated to the art of translation.

Other
Learned Organizations include the Crypto-Mathematics Institute, the Computer
Information Sciences Institute, and the International Affairs Institute. The
traffic and signal analysts have their Communications Analysis Association, the
cryptanalysts have their Kryptos Society, and the intercept operators have
their Collection Association, which presents an award to the best eavesdropper
of the year.

While in
many respects Crypto City is unique, and, to many, even incomprehensible, it
can also be very ordinary. Like other large communities, it has its share of
dirt, fear of crime, and other problems. The same NSA police who guard the
inner sanctum of codebreaking also, during 1993, gave out thousands of parking
tickets and responded to 236 traffic accidents and 742 other emergencies.
NSAers complain about poor working conditions. "Accumulated along every
hallway leading to those few stairways," said one employee whose branch
moved into the basement of the old OPS 1 Building, "are mounds of trash,
pallets of cast-off equipment, old racks, and dilapidated shelves."
Another complained of a burned-out car that had been in a city parking lot for
days, and of trash accumulating in front of OPS 2A.

Some
residents are afraid to walk through remote tunnels and hallways late at night.
"If I use the south tunnel, I am really asking for it," said one
late-night worker. "Although the tunnel has a row of overhead lights, only
one works—and that one is very dim . . . someone could wait there . . . follow
me into the tunnel, and grab me once no one was in sight."

At the
heart of the invisible city is NSA's massive Headquarters/Operations Building.
With more than sixty-eight acres of floor space, the entire U.S. Capitol
Building could easily fit inside it four times over. A modern, boxy structure
with floor after floor of dark one-way glass, from the outside much of the
complex looks like any stylish office building. But looks, like most else at
NSA, are meant to deceive.

Hidden
underneath this reflective glass is the real building. This one is protected by
a skin of orange-colored copper and unique windows—a thick, bulletproof-like
outer pane, five inches of sound-deadening space, a thin copper screen, and an
inner pane. The elaborate shielding is designed to keep all sounds and
signals—indeed all types of electromagnetic radiation—from ever getting out.
Known by the code-name Tempest, this protective copper shielding technique is
used throughout much of the city and is designed to prevent electronic spies
from capturing any telltale emissions. Like a black hole, NSA pulls in every signal
that comes near, but no electron is ever allowed to escape. At least that is
the way NSA would like it.

The
massive Headquarters/Operations Building is an interconnected labyrinth of 3
million square feet that stretches in all directions. Entrance is first made
through the two-story Visitor Control Center, one of more than 100 fixed watch
posts within the secret city manned by the armed NSA police. It is here that
clearances are checked and visitor badges are issued.

Far more
than a simple piece of plastic, the NSA badge, about the size of a playing
card, with the employee's picture on the front, represents life itself to
Crypto City's tens of thousands of daytime residents. Take it away, and their
livelihood suddenly disappears; change the color, and their status goes up or
down. If they forget it, their day is a mess; if they lose it, they come under
suspicion. Add a tab, and their universe grows slightly larger.

Blue
badges are worn by those who have passed a lengthy background investigation,
suffered through a nerve-racking polygraph exam, received a top secret codeword
clearance, and, finally, been "indoctrinated" into the supersecret
world of Sigint and codemaking. The "indoctrination" is NSAs version
of at last being let in on the club's secret handshake, finally being allowed
to look behind the thick black curtain. It is something like a Mafia induction
ceremony without the drop of blood. The fresh initiates may now be told how
their country eavesdrops on other countries, breaks their codes, and reads
their most secret communications.

Next, in
solemn tones, the new blue-badgers are told the meaning of certain secret
codewords, such as Umbra, which, when stamped on a document, means that it
reveals the highest-level signals intelligence sources and methods. Some are
indoctrinated for additional codewords, such as Gamma, which means that the
information comes from a particularly sensitive source, such as internal
foreign communications systems or cipher systems that NSA was able to defeat.
Others, such as Zarf, indicate that the information was obtained from
electronic intelligence picked up by eavesdropping satellites. Like an endless
spiral, there are secret classification systems within secret classification
systems. In 1974, a new category was approved exclusively for NSA's most secret
secrets: VRK, Very Restricted Knowledge.

Although
they predominate in NSA's secret city, the blue badge is only one of twenty-six
different styles and colors that make up the security rainbow. Fully cleared
contractors wear green; those with only a secret clearance have LIC (Limited
Interim Clearance) printed on top; students at the National Cryptologic School
have a turquoise border around their badges; and former directors and deputy
directors have red and blue stripes around them. Important visitors have PV
("privileged visitor") badges, while uncleared visitors must wear a
badge with a large red
V
and be accompanied by a person with an
additional
E
(for "escort") badge.

Additionally,
for admittance into certain supersecure areas, a small plastic plate must
sometimes be attached to the neck chain above the picture badge. Workers in the
National Security Operations Center, for example, wear a plate bearing the
letters "NSOC." And at the agency's giant listening post at Menwith
Hill Station in central England, only NSAers with a badge plate bearing a blue
diagonal strip are allowed into the building that houses Operation Silkworth.
This is a satellite eavesdropping mission targeting Russian microwave
communications.

And then
there is the red badge—the NSA equivalent of the Scarlet Letter, awarded to
those who have had their clearance taken away. Although officially it stands
for "clearance status not indicated," and is normally worn by people
working in the "Red Corridor"—the drugstore and other concession
areas—for ex—blue-badgers it is the ultimate humiliation. Those with a red
badge around their necks are forbidden to go anywhere near classified
information and are restricted to a few corridors and administrative areas—the
bank, the barbershop, the cafeteria, the credit union, and the airline and
entertainment ticket counters. A clearance may be yanked for reasons ranging
from bad debts to an unauthorized meeting with a foreign official to an
unfounded third-hand rumor twice removed.

Regardless
of their badge's color, all employees are warned, "After you leave an NSA
installation, remove your badge from public view, thus avoiding publicizing
your NSA affiliation."

Once
inside the white, pentagonal Visitor Control Center, employees are greeted by a
six-foot painting of the NSA seal, an eagle clutching a silver key in what the
agency describes as "sinister talons." In front of the seal are ten
Access Control Terminals, watched over by a central security command post.
Employees insert their security badges into the terminals, punch in their
personal identification numbers on the keyboard, and wait for the green light
to signal that the turnstile is unlocked. At unannounced times, a special cadre
of NSA police officers assigned to the Aperiodic Inspection Team conduct
surprise inspections, looking for anyone attempting to smuggle out secret
documents, or to sneak in cameras, tape recorders, computer disks—or Furbys.

In
December 1998, worried security officials sent out a "Furby Alert" on
the agency's Intranet, banning the small furry toys. Because the homely,
bug-eyed creature contains a small device allowing it to mimic words, officials
worried that a Furby might retain snippets of secret conversations in its
microbrain. NSA employees "are prohibited from introducing these items
into NSA spaces," the warning said. As for those improbable few who might
already have one sitting on their desk, the notice sternly instructed them to
"contact their Staff Security Officer for guidance." In a recent year
more than 30,000 inspections were conducted at the Visitor Control Center and
the other gatehouses. There are no statistics on how many people were arrested
with illegal Furbys.

From the
Visitor Control Center one enters the eleven-story, $41 million OPS 2A, the
tallest building in the City. Shaped like a dark glass Rubik's Cube, the
building houses much of NSA's Operations Directorate, which is responsible for
processing the ocean of intercepts and prying open the complex cipher systems.

Beyond the
Visitor Control Center, secrecy and security permeate the air. Above
escalators, moving electronic words on "Magic Message" boards warn
employees against talking about work outside the secret city. Along hallways
and in the cafeteria, signs hanging from the ceiling warn "Don't Spill the
Beans, Partner. No Classified Talk!" Other warnings are posted on bulletin
boards throughout the city. No meetings of any kind may be held in the Visitor
Control Center, where an uncleared person may be present. Classified talk in
"corridors, restrooms, cafeterias . . . barber shop, and drugstore"
is forbidden, according to the NSA Security Handbook.

Every
month, NSA's Office of Security pumps out 14,000 security posters designed by
"security awareness officers" to line Crypto City's rest rooms, snack
bars, hallways, and stairwells. Others are sent to overseas listening posts and
contractor facilities. One design pictured a noose hanging from the branch of a
tree, with the caption, "For Repeated Security Violations." Some
posters appear to have been concocted in a time warp. On the very day that East
and West Germany were unified in the Federal Republic, security officials
unveiled a new poster showing East German troops standing on the Berlin Wall.
The caption was a menacing 1931 prediction by a Soviet official: the USSR would
win a military victory over the capitalists by duping them with bogus peace overtures.
Another poster shows Uncle Sam asleep under a tree while a skulking Soviet ogre
prepares to take advantage.

The
posters prompted one NSA employee to question whether the campaign represents
"a not-too-subtle form of political indoctrination in a format reminiscent
of traditional Cold War propaganda." Another complained that visitors to
NSA "must find them surreal."

More
recently, the posters have begun to reflect pop culture. One is designed like a
scene from the popular television quiz show
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
"What
should you do if approached by a foreign intelligence officer?" reads the
question.
"A:
Answer Questions;
B:
Accept Gifts;
C:
Negotiate
Payment." Circled is answer
D:
"Report Contact." Finally,
the poster adds, "And This Is OUR Final Answer." Another poster bears
a picture of a wastebasket containing copies of
Newsweek,
the
New
York Times,
and other news publications below the caption "Snooper
Bowl."