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National Security Agency
U.S. signals intelligence organization / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The National Security Agency (NSA) is part of the US government. The agency was started in 1952, and its main office is in Maryland.
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Its stated goal is to protect the US people by
- Worldwide "earsdropping," secretly listening to what people are saying in other countries. It monitors, collects, decodes, translates and analyses information and data. That is known as signals intelligence (SIGINT).
- Protecting the US from eavesdropping and SIGINT spying by foreign governments and agencies, called "penetration and network warfare."[1][2] The agency does so by clandestine (secret) means,[3] such as bugging electronic systems,[4] and sabotaging their computer networks with viral software.[5][6]