National Security Agency Gift Shop

National Security Agency is one of the most concealed institutions from the public eye in the United States of America. Their annual budget is confidential and the phone numbers of the institutions aren’t listed anywhere. We know them from the movies where they flash their badges and make impossible things very easy to accomplish, and the easy things very complicated. In the name of national security, they are virtually allowed pretty much everything. If we meet them in real life, which happens so seldom, then the planet definitely needs saving.

National Security Agency (herein referred to as NSA) is a governmental agency acting as a branch of the US Department of Defense. It was created on November 4, 1952 by President Truman and is responsible for collecting and analyzing foreign intelligence that deals with criptanalysis. Conversely, its task is to deny its foreign counterparts gaining access to American intelligence based on cryptology.

Ever since 2008, NSA has been called to monitor computer networks against internet attacks, especially those related to strategic organizations and agencies of the US Government. NSA is confined to communications intelligence, and does not perform activities related to human intelligence. The law binds NSA to gather information from monitoring foreign communications. There have been reports though that they are not all the time abiding by the law.

NSA monitors phones, radio communications, Internet, cell phones, and other forms of communication. It is the organization that employs the greatest number of mathematicians in the world and the one that has the greatest number of supercomputers in the world. And yet, it manages to keep a low profile. NSA is the leading organization in the fight against cyber-terrorism.

NSA continues the work of gathering intelligence carried by military organizations such as Army Security Agency, Naval Security Group or Air Force Security Service in the ’40s. All these agencies had limited power and lacked a central coordination.

NSA was involved in controversies such as the one around the Data Encryption Standard, which is a cipher algorithm used by the US Government and the banking system. As IBM was developing this code, NSA suggested a few changes in it. There was suspicion that these changes in design were what it took to allow the agency to eavesdrop at its convenience. Eventually, it was concluded by a governmental report that the involvement of the NSA was beneficiary and helped to strengthening of the code.<

Recently, NSA has made a change in its public relations. For reasons that are not entirely at our grasp, they decided to put a friendly face on the name of the agency. Thus, they took a few steps in that direction, one of them being opening some gift shops that would provide you with souvenirs.

Don’t get your hopes too high, these gift shops don’t sell alien technology or interception devices. Its all about insignia, logos, stuff like this.

If you want to look cool at the office you may buy a NSA mug for the price of $15. Probably it will make you have your coffee alone, but it’s worthwhile.

If you want to continue on that note you may add to the mug a bumper sticker saying “NSA has wiretapped your mother for your protection”. Or maybe you shouldn’t go that far. Maybe you should settle to a “Off my back!” sticker. They both cost $5, but the damage the former can produce is far less costly.

NSA is determined to make friends with everybody. The gift shop sells T-shirts even for toddlers. These, too, have on them messages the little people can not even make out yet. Thank God for small favors!

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