The day of David Paeterus’ resignation, FOIA requests were
submitted to various intelligence agencies seeking their records regarding his
decision.The National Security Agency
was the first to response with a “no records response. In addition to claiming
to have zero records regarding the matter, the National Security Agency went on record to explain
that having such records is not within the scope of their mission which “are
set at the highest level of government”.
It seems a little late in the year for a 2012 calendar to be of much use, however the Center for Cryptologic History's 2012 calendar will be good for years to come. The calendar is filled with rare pictures about the NSA and is positively brimming with historical facts relating to the NSA, SIGINT, COMINT, and Cryptologic history to list just a few topics.
In response to a FOIA request, the National Security Agency has
released an index of its Cryptologic Quarterly articles from the 1980s through
2010. Covering topics from "Applied Wavelet Analysis to the Zimmerman
Telegram, the index provides a glimpse into the academic and intellectual
activities of the NSA staff.
The index, alphabetized by title has largely been declassified and
there minimum redactions to titles or the keyword index with only a small
percentage of the titles withheld in their entirety. The NSA, however, invoked
the b(3) exemption so most of the authors are unknown. Those authors whose
identities were revealed are mostly associated with the Center for Cryptologic
History though some were written by prominent NSA figures such as Frank B.
Rowlett, Howard H. Campaigne, and former DIRNSA William Studeman.
In response to a FOIA request, the National Security Agency
has released a listing of all its closed Inspector General (IG) investigations.
The listing is detail sparse, providing only a few details such as the case number, the date closed, a generic
description of the subject matter such as “Time, Attendance, and Pay,"
"Reprisal," and Miscellaneous." The list said to be all
inclusive as stated in the FOIA request. This is a complete listing of closed
IG complaints from 1995 to the summer of 2012. The list is organized by
case number. The dating is a little disjointed, with the cases from 1995 to
1999 starting on page 20.
In a recently declassified and partially released NSA oral
history conducted in the first year as his reign as DIRNSA, VADM stated that he
believed the NSA’s staff, while the “best in the Government,” were “spoiled and
pampered.”As is the brief, 13-page
interview were McConnell’s doubts as to whether he was “yet qualified to be
director,” even though he had a prior tour of duty in the NSA, his plans for transforming
the NSA in light of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and some amusing
historical tidbits.
The oral history isn’t very good which is not surprising
that it can at the beginning of McConnell’s term when the prominent events of
his reign had yet to begin or were just starting such as Operation Restore Hope
in Somalia, the Bosnian War, and the flaring up of the conflict with Iraq.The real value of this interview is the
historical tidbits sprinkled within such as Dick Cheney was fishing and out of
contact when the Soviet hardliners staged their coup in 1991 and that McConnell
had been given the job of briefing Cheney as to what was going on in the Soviet
Union during the coup.
Another worthwhile bit of information is the
revelation that the NSA or at least McConnell had a fear of Congress because “you
have to be careful about talking to Congress. You go down there and just give
it away, and some member in the Congress at a TS level could stand up on the
floor and is not subject to prosecution. He can say anything he wants to say …
classified or unclassified. So you have to be careful.”
