Re: BODY OF SECRETS -- ANATOMY OF THE ULTRA-SECRET NATIONAL
Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2015 10:53 pm
Part 1 of 3
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: SOUL
TRZAV DUZR QYKZYVTQXY DQUVT SZYBQYGVT BZ SFZGK VSZYZRQVT ODPUW RDAAZGGWW ROZWI UPVBZRZDPU DI YOZGW ODPUW GSBWV NMMNDWKWNS MOlKWRD PROVWSC WS OICRSKWSR FNSCRDD RPRFKWNSD SEYEAKO RHAZ ACR OZHNEDL, YEUU LCZFBNBLC FCABSHZEBA JBYYF TAFHOUR: HOAKR HOPJU HFA MCYQHFAEOC TJFEB MFEUACMU
As mysterious as the agency itself are the tens of thousands of nameless and faceless people who populate NSA's secret city. According to various agency statistics, the average employee is forty-three years old, with between fourteen and eighteen years of experience. About 59 percent of the workers are male and 10 percent are members of racial and ethnic minorities. Sixty-three percent of the workforce has less than ten years' experience; 13 percent are in the military (including four generals and admirals), 27 percent are veterans, 3.3 percent are retired military, and 5 percent are disabled. In addition to civilian and military employees, 2,300 contractors are employed full-time at the agency.
If NSA were considered as a corporation, then, in terms of dollars spent, floor space occupied, and personnel employed, it would rank in the top 10 percent of Fortune 500 companies. In 1993 NSA spent over $9.4 million on air travel; more than 90 percent of the flights originated at nearby Baltimore-Washington International Airport. On behalf of NSA employees residing in Maryland, NSA paid approximately $65 million in 1993 state income taxes on gross salaries totaling approximately $930 million.
But beyond the numbing statistics, the men and women who disappear through the double steel fences every day are both extraordinary and ordinary. They constitute the largest collection of mathematicians and linguists in the country and possibly the world, and they are civil servants angry over how far they must park from their building. Some spend their day translating messages in Sinhalese (spoken in Sri Lanka), or delving into the upper reaches of combinatorics and Galois theory. One woman knows everything on earth about tires. "She's known as the 'tire lady,' said one of NSA's customers in the intelligence community. "She's the tire specialist. Embargoed airplanes need tires and when you're trying to embargo somebody it's the little things that take on major importance. If somebody is shipping jet fighter tires to Iran you want to know what kind of fighter they go on."
Most NSA staffers could be anyone's neighbor. Some wear suits to work every day, but most dress less formally. "There is no dress code at all," complained one fashion-conscious former Russian linguist, who called NSA a "haven for geeks and nerds." "I saw a guy wearing yellow pants, yellow shirt, and yellow sweater vest," she said. "A lot of guys don't dress that well."
When he has time, Brent Morris performs magic at his children's school in Columbia, Maryland. At NSA, he is a senior cryptologic mathematician. Morris got hooked on magic at the age of five when he saw Buffalo Bob perform a trick on the Howdy Doody television show. In high school he learned the perfect card shuffle while studying the connection between math and magic. At NSA, Morris used the perfect shuffle to help develop a method of random and sequential accessing of computer memories. Later the shuffle helped him work out a method of sorting computer information. Morris also served as the executive secretary of the NSA Scientific Advisory Board.
By day Eileen Buckholtz works in NSA's Telecommunications and Computer Services Organization. But by night she is "Rebecca York," the author of a series of romantic suspense novels published by Harlequin. Her co-author is married to another NSAer. And Frederick Bulinski of the agency's Programs and Resources Organization was inducted into the Polka Music Hall of Fame, has released eight albums, and organizes "Polkamotion by the Ocean," a popular yearly festival in Ocean City, Maryland.
One unique study, done by longtime NSA employee Gary L. Grantham, examined the character, styles, traits, and. personalities of NSA's management. "The results show that the personality of NSA lead ership is substantially different as a group from the general population of the United States," he concluded. "NSA management is more introverted in dealing with situations, more impersonal in making judgments, and more likely to come to conclusions about their environment than is the general population." Grantham explained that the reason that NSA managers were more shy and impersonal had largely to do with "the highly technical mission of the organization and the large numbers of college- trained employees and those with military background where similar personality traits are found."
The study, "Who Is NSA," was conducted as part of a program at the National War College. NSA granted Grantham access to the results of a test, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which was given to NSA senior executives and supervisors. The tests indicated that almost two-thirds of the officials were introverted in the way they dealt with "the outer world." "This contrasts markedly with the general population in the U.S.," said the study, "where extraverting [sic] types make up about 75 percent." NSA officials were also far more "thinking" oriented than the outside world, which was more "feeling" in its professional relationships. "The average NSA manager is more introverted than the general public, much more intuitive, more thinking, and more judging." "You can always tell an NSA extrovert," goes one old agency joke. "He looks at your shoe tips instead of his."
"The great predominance of introverts (64%) means that most NSA managers have greater powers of concentration," the study concluded, "and go deeply into their work by focusing on the underlying concepts and ideas in the pursuit of real understanding. They may be reluctant to consider their work finished and get rid of it. They are not likely to be affected by a lack of praise or encouragement since their focus is on their inner world. If they assume that everyone around them has the same attitude about the world as they do, they may fail to recognize the needs of the extraverts around them for praise. By the same token, the introverts' inner-directed view of the world is often confusing to those around them, including other introverts."
Finally, the study suggested a secret city run by a cold, aloof, detached management. "The predominance of thinking types among managers at NSA is significant in that their preferred way of judging is impersonal, logical, and analytic. While that approach is decidedly more useful in solving task-oriented problems, the people side of managing will suffer. Thinking types expect to be recognized for their competence. Their rewards are responsibility, titles, and raises. They may forget, or not be aware, that one-fourth of their subordinates are feeling types who occasionally need praise and need to be appreciated for who they are, doing a job. According to one observer, 'a "T" [thinking type] thinks that if you haven't been fired, you should know you are doing a good job.'
"The overwhelming preference among NSA managers for judging reflects a choice for system and order. They are organizers who thrive on making decisions, schedules, and programs, and are disconcerted by disruptions or unplanned occurrences. They are less tolerant, less openminded and less flexible than their perceptive co-workers who often put off making a decision because they are not sure they have enough information. The potential for conflict is great."
For many, if not most, the initial excitement of working in the nation's largest and most secret spy agency gradually gives way to routine. "From my perspective," said Tami McCaslin, associate editor of the NSA Newsletter, "isolated in the depths of the Newsletter office, I sometimes fail to see how the rest of the world can be so intrigued by this (in my mind) typical government bureaucracy."
As diverse as the workforce is, there is one thing ,they all have in common: you won't find them talking about their jobs, even when they're sharing a meal in the cafeteria with someone from the next office. The operative rule is "Don't tell, don't ask" about work. The very first subject addressed in the NSA Handbook, given to all new residents of the secret city, is the "practice of anonymity." "Perhaps one of the first security practices with which new NSA personnel should become acquainted is the practice of anonymity...." says the report. "Anonymity means that NSA personnel are encouraged not to draw attention to themselves nor to their association with this Agency. NSA personnel are also cautioned neither to confirm nor deny any specific questions about NSA activities directed to them by individuals not affiliated with the Agency." Finally, the handbook warns: "The ramifications of the practice of anonymity are rather far reaching."
Those seeking employment with NSA are told little about the actual work of the organization. "It has become commonplace in recent years to describe NSA as super-secret -- 'the hush-hush Agency,'" said an editorial in NSA's highly secret NSA Technical Journal "NSA, with missions so interwoven in the fabric of national security, necessarily has had to forgo all custom of public statement, to eschew the press releases which over the years might build an inviting public image and make its worth known to the American people. Though mindful of the dictates of security, NSA knows too that security can have an adverse effect on recruitment -- the lifeline of any institution. Indeed, so little can be said that the acceptance of employment with NSA is virtually an act of faith."
Concerned over the failure to reach recruits with critical high-tech abilities because of the agency's obsession with secrecy, the editorial's author suggested getting the following message out to the scientific academic community: "We in NSA comprise a scientific and technological community that is unique in the United States, unique in the western world and perhaps unique in the entire world. We work on problems which no other agency works on. We develop and utilize devices which are in advance of those that have been developed or are utilized by any other agency or any organization in the entire United States. We are confronted with an ever-changing challenge of greater complexity, of greater scope, and of correspondingly greater depth and difficulty than any other changing challenge on the rapidly evolving frontier of science and technology. If you can qualify, you will find NSA a stimulating and rewarding place to work. If you are interested, we can tell you a little more but not much more. One of the qualifications is faith." Still nervous even over that bland description, the editorial added, "Before you send it -- better check it out with Security."
More recently, the agency has made a few reluctant public references to cryptology and signals intelligence. "Your challenge," says one brochure directed at mathematicians, "is to use algebra, number theory, combinatorics, statistics, even cryptology and other skills to create -- or break -- nearly impenetrable codes and ciphers." Another said, "The challenge is to use probability, statistics, Fourier analysis, Galois theory, stochastic processes and other techniques to outwit the world experts in creating or breaking codes and ciphers." But beyond that, no more is said.
"We're looking for those special few," goes one NSA recruitment pitch, "who are up to this ultimate test." Some are hired while still in college, through a minority scholarship program known as the Undergraduate Training Program. The students work at NSA during summers, then receive full-time offers upon graduation. The program is highly competitive. Of the 600 to 800 high school students who apply each year, only a small percentage are selected. In 1999 there were seventy-nine participants attending a variety of schools, including Harvard, MIT, Princeton, and Cornell. Not everyone, however, is happy about the program. "It is appalling," complained one employee, "to see such a blatant case of reverse discrimination being sponsored by the Agency."
Other opportunities for those in college are offered by the agency's Co-operative Education Program, which allows about four dozen students to spend their college years alternating semesters between fulltime work and full-time study. In 1997, about 80 percent of the graduates chose to remain with the agency. "Our recruiting strategy has historically been built on excitement of the mission," said Deputy Director for Services Terry Thompson in 1999. "And that's why our Co-op programs are so vital to us because when we get people in here before they make the big career decision when they graduate, and find out about the excitement of the mission."
Traditionally, prospective employees were marched in groups through the agency, like draftees, for numerous interviews, tests, and polygraph exams. Only at the completion of the process -- it normally took about seven months -- would some of those prospects be matched to a particular job and offered employment. But by then many had already accepted better-paying jobs from private industry, and the agency was forced to dig deeper in the pool. Those not called would remain in limbo.
Stung by tough competition paying top dollar for information technology personnel, the agency in 1999 initiated a streamlined hiring process based more on private industry than on the local draft board. Only a few schools were targeted, so that strong relationships with them could be established. Students were given more detailed job descriptions than the agency had offered in the past, as well as a better explanation of the benefits of working at the cutting edge of technology. A private firm was hired to scan resumes into an NSA-only Internet site. The company then helped match the resumes to specific jobs. An e-mail address was created (njobs@fggm.osis.gov) for the submission of resumes. Finally, in order to accelerate the process, initial screening was done over the telephone.
Those selected are then brought to headquarters for interviews; they undertake a battery of standardized tests and are assigned NSA "buddies" to help sell them on the agency and the surrounding community. The exams are designed to measure a person's general knowledge as well as his or her "cipher brain" -- the special abilities needed for the tedious, sometimes mind-numbing, work of a cryptanalyst or other cryptologic staffer. Although codebreaking and codemaking are what most people think of in terms of occupations at NSA, "they undoubtedly represent a declining percentage of the Agency's work force," said a recent internal document. This results from growth in other areas, such as personnel and employee services.
One math major who recently went through the process, hoping to become one of the agency's 600 mathematicians, found it "very humanely organized." He was fingerprinted and asked to fill out a thick "Statement of Personal History" containing detailed questions concerning addresses, travel, and activities over the past ten years. "Getting through that required me to think plenty about whether I wanted to go through it all," he said.
Next, he was invited down to Fort Meade, assigned an escort, and paraded through a gauntlet of interviews. The escort, a fellow mathematician, took on the buddy role, answering. questions in a candid, off-the-record manner, and putting in occasional plugs for the agency. The candidate was surprised to find that every official who interviewed him was very familiar with his resume, down to the marks on his transcripts. "I've never had that happen before," he said.
His first interview was with the head of the mathematicians' training unit, who described the three-year program the applicant would have to complete, beginning with a long course at the National Cryptologic School. He and about forty other newly hired students, some just out of college and some with Ph.D.s, would get a quick review of higher algebra followed by deep involvement in the cryptologic aspects of mathematics. Normally the course work would involve two hours of lectures every day, followed by six hours of study. Lining one wall of the official's office were photos of the three classes of mathematician trainees then in the pipeline.
After a candidate undergoes interviews and submits a variety of paperwork, such as letters of reference, his or her name is sent to the twenty-four-member Mathematicians Hiring Committee. During one of the committee's monthly meetings, the person is discussed and voted on. The views of the escorts are never solicited nor are they questioned on their conversations with the candidate. Results of the vote, yea or nay, are immediately sent out by e-mail.
Those who make the final cut -- in recent years about 100 of the 2,000 or so people who applied annually -- are then given a conditional offer of employment. Next they begin their processing at the agency's four-story Airport Square Building a few miles away in the FANX compound. There, the new recruits spend their first day filling out forms and getting a medical checkup.
The next hurdle is the intensive background investigation conducted on all prospective employees by the Defense Security Service. Known as an SSBI (for Single-Scope Background Investigation; it is also known within NSA as a Special Background Investigation), it includes a "National Agency Check" -- a check of all federal investigative agencies for derogatory information. Birth records and citizenship are verified. Finally, education, employment, credit files, and local court records are checked for the previous ten years. A neighborhood search for dirt is also conducted at addresses listed for the past decade.
Rob Fuggetta, who lives in Odenton, Maryland, near NSA, recalled when a government investigator knocked on his door in the mid-1980s and began quizzing him about his neighbor, a high school student looking for a summer job at NSA. The questions started off routine, he said, but soon turned very personal. "Do you know if he's a homosexual? Does he use drugs or alcohol? Does he go to church frequently? What can you tell me about his home life? Does he get along with his parents?"
"Appropriate character" is what NSA was looking for, according to Bill Shores, in charge of NSA's college recruitment program at the time. That someone is homosexual or a drug user, per se, "does not mean [he or she] can't come to work for NSA," he said, but "a person that has something to hide would not be a good security risk."
NSA officials are fighting a new proposal by the Defense Security Service to abandon neighborhood in-person visits in favor of simple telephone calls. The DSS argues that it can no longer afford such costly and time-consuming procedures. Pointing out that NSA is only one of its customers, DSS officials say that they must conduct more than 250,000 background investigations of government and contractor personnel each year, leading to tremendous backlogs. At the same time, the agency is behind on tens of thousands of five-year updates required for the 3 million federal employees and contractors who hold active security clearances. Thus, by 2000, DSS's total backlog was a whopping 900,000 investigations. On top of those problems, DSS personnel have been cut back about 40 percent in recent years, from 4,300 employees in the mid-1980s to 2,500 in 1998.
A survey done in 1999 discovered that 94 percent of the background investigations DSS conducted for NSA were incomplete and not up to federal standards. That same year, a routine reinvestigation polygraph examination resulted in the arrest of Daniel King, a Navy petty officer working for NSA. King, an eighteen-year veteran, was arrested on October 28 and charged with espionage for allegedly confessing to mailing a computer disk to the Russian embassy five years earlier. The disk allegedly contained supersensitive details on NSA's undersea cabletapping operations against the Russians.
After the SSBI is completed, the results are sent back to NSA for evaluation.
The next phase takes them down a narrow passageway to an area of small offices that sends shivers down the backs of most candidates: Polygraph Services. Within the tiny beige offices, new, computerized polygraph machines sit on wood- rain desktops and are attached to monitors that display the recruit's physiological responses in a variety of formats. Among the data recorded, according to an NSA document, are the individual's "respiration, electro-dermal responses, pulse rate, pulse amplitude, vascular volume, capillary volume, vascular pressure, capillary pressure, and bodily movement as recorded by pneumograph, galvanograph, cardiosphygmograph, plethysmograph and cardio activity monitors, which are sections of polygraph instruments." Watching the graphics form sharp peaks and deep valleys is one of the agency's several dozen certified examiners. Many of the questions they ask come from the results of the SSBI.
On the other side of the desk, the applicant sits in a large, heavily padded, executive-type swivel chair. Electrodes are attached to the fingers; rubber tubes are strapped around the chest; and a bulky blood pressure cuff fits around the upper arm. What the examiners are looking for are significant changes from the subject's baseline chart. These may be as dramatic as a total cessation of breathing or a major increase in blood pressure -- or as subtle as a slight decrease in skin resistance.
The Armed Forces Security Agency began the polygraph program in May 1951 with the hiring of six examiners at annual salaries of $6,400. The program was introduced because the agency was growing so quickly that background investigations could not be completed fast enough for the hiring program. More than 1,000 people had been hired but could not be cleared until their background investigation was finished, which because of the Korean War was taking from nine to eighteen months. By 1953 NSA was giving polygraphs to all job applicants. The questioning was originally conducted in a well-guarded, ominous-looking building at 1436 U Street, NW, in Washington, before the office moved to the Operations Building and then to FANX.
The polygraph remains the most dreaded part of NSA's admission ritual. "Polygraph! The word alone is enough to set your nerves on edge," began one article on the machine in NSA's in-house newsletter. It is also, by far, the most important part of that ritual. According to a study at NSA, 78 percent of all information used in evaluating an applicant as a security risk comes from the polygraph reports. Only 22 percent of the information is based on the background investigations.
From July 1983 to June 1984 the agency administered a total of 11,442 examinations. Of those, 4,476 were given to job applicants. From that group, 1,875 dropped out voluntarily for a variety of reasons. Of the remaining 2,601, 793 were rejected by the agency's Applicant Review Panel, composed of personnel, security, and medical managers. As an example of the power of the box, a whopping 90 percent of those (714 of 793) were booted because of bad polygraph results. During the first half of 1984 a total of 1,202 contractors were strapped to the machine, and 167 were shown the door after leaving the polygraph room.
The polygraph sessions earned a black eye during the 1950s and early 1960s because of the agency's heavy dependence on the EPQ, or embarrassing personal question. EPQs are almost inevitably directed toward intimate aspects of a person's sex life and bear little relationship to his or her honesty or patriotism. Following a congressional investigation and an internal crackdown, the personal questions became somewhat tamer but abuses have occasionally continued.
"The worst experience of my life," said one former NSA Russian linguist, "was the lie-detector test." After starting out with questions about shoplifting, the polygraph operator quickly turned to sex, asking if she was into bestiality. "If you have sex, they want to know how much. If you have too much sex, they get scared. If you don't have sex, they think you're gay. At the time I wasn't dating anybody and they kept wanting to know, 'Why don't you have a boyfriend?'" That test was given in 1993. More recently, NSA claims, the questions have been less intrusive.
Contractor employees were first required to take polygraphs in 1957. And in 1982, following a damaging spy scandal at Britain's GCHQ, military personnel assigned to NSA were first required to be strapped to the box. The military entrance polygraph is conducted by the military services on military assignees before their acceptance for a position at NSA and is directed toward counterintelligence questions.
At the same time, a five-year reinvestigation polygraph examination, which also focuses on counterintelligence-related questions, was introduced for all employees. Still another polygraph program, the special access examination, was instituted to test employees about to be assigned to especially sensitive programs within NSA. Those tested under this program are asked both counterintelligence and, under certain circumstances, "suitability" -- personal -- questions.
Finally, again in 1982, NSA instituted a dreaded policy of unscheduled "aperiodic" counterintelligence polygraph examinations. One purpose of these tests is to look for spies; another is to look for leakers. According to a memo from the director, civilian employees who refused to consent faced "termination of employment." The agency, said one senior NSA official, asked the Justice Department to investigate about four leaks a year during the first half of the 1980s.
Among the topics covered during NSA's counterintelligence polygraph examination are the following.
• knowledge of, participation in, or commission of acts of espionage or sabotage against the United States
• knowledge of, approaches to, or giving or selling any classified information or material to unauthorized persons
• unauthorized or unreported foreign contacts
The idea of suddenly being called from an office, strapped to a machine, and asked whether you have been selling secrets to the Russians or leaking information to the press might leave "the work force at NSA ... shocked," said Philip T. Pease, the chief of the Office of Security at NSA. As a result, employees were called to the Friedman Auditorium for a series of town meetings during which the new procedures were discussed.
Under the aperiodic exam program, the agency, without notice, pulled 1,770 people into the polygraph rooms in 1983. Of those, 1,699 were thanked and sent on their way. Seventy-one, however, were asked to come back for a further interview, which cleared all but four. They returned for a third round of drilling but were eventually also allowed to return to work, presumably a few pounds lighter. According to the chief of the Polygraph Division, Norman Ansley, the problems ranged across the board. One individual had kept a classified manual at his residence for several years. Another person knew of the improper destruction of crypto keying material. Still another described a suspicious approach by foreign personnel but had failed to report the incident at the time it took place.
After the test, the examiner reviews the individual's charts and makes a final decision on the results. "NSR" (no significant response) means that there were no unresolved issues. "SPR" (specific physiological response) signifies that the individual reacted consistently to a specific question. "INC" (inconclusive) means that the test results could not be interpreted. And "incomplete" signifies that the test was not finished. When issues are unresolved, the individual is requested to return to the box for retesting.
Once completed, the examiner's report is forwarded to quality control for an independent review of accuracy and analysis and to ensure that all issues have been covered. From there it travels to the Clearance Division for adjudication. The polygraph examiner does not make any clearance decisions. His or her sole purpose is to verify the validity of the information being provided during the interview and to resolve any matters that are causing the person difficulty in passing the test.
A unique insight into the NSA polygraph program comes from an analysis of 20,511 applicants between 1974 and 1979. Of those, 695 (3.4 percent) admitted to the commission of a felony. In nearly all cases the perpetrator had gone undetected. The admissions included murder, armed robbery, forcible rape, burglary, arson, embezzlement, hit-and-run driving with personal injury, thefts of expensive items or large amounts of money, smuggling, and wholesale selling of illegal drugs.
One person who applied to NSA proved to be a fugitive who, during questioning under the polygraph, admitted firing a rifle into his estranged wife's home in an attempt to murder her. Another confessed to firing his shotgun at six people, and hitting all of them. He had been charged with attempted murder but not tried because of lack of evidence. Still another told of setting fire to the trailer in which his ex-wife and their child lived. A veteran admitted to a polygraph operator that while in Vietnam he had murdered a young girl. On a later occasion he stabbed a stranger in the face with a knife in an argument over some beer. And an applicant for an engineering position -- who was employed as an engineer by another government agency -- blurted out that he had shot and wounded his second wife and that his present wife was missing under unusual circumstances, which he would not explain. He also suddenly declared that his engineering degree was phony.
Even espionage has turned up during polygraph examinations. One applicant with access to Top Secret/Codeword intelligence who was about to retire from the military described making several visits to the Soviet embassy to make arrangements to defect to the Soviet Union. The Russians took copies of his classified documents and when they found out he had applied to NSA for employment, they encouraged him to continue.
Another applicant, who had access to classified information while in the military, confessed that he would sell classified information to a foreign intelligence service if he could get enough money. And one person looking for a job at NSA eventually admitted that much of his background was falsified and that he had worked as a scientific adviser to the chief of a foreign military intelligence agency.
Most significantly, the NSA study indicated serious questions about highly cleared military personnel assigned to NSA's Central Security Service. At the time, service members were not subject to the polygraph. During the five-year period of the survey, 2,426 of these SCI-cleared military personnel applied for employment with NSA as civilians. Of that number, thirteen admitted that either they themselves or someone they knew had been involved in espionage. Another twenty-five told of passing classified information to Communists or terrorists.
In the early 1990s NSA became the first intelligence or defense agency to completely computerize its polygraph program -- the first major change in the art of polygraphy since 1940. According to NSA officials, the computerized polygraph equipment was found to be more ac curate than conventional methods because it could record signals at maximum sensitivity. The computer also allows the examiner to change how the data are displayed on the screen without changing the base data, thus protecting the validity of the test.
The agency is currently working on ways to almost completely eliminate all human involvement in the polygraph process. In the near future an Orwellian computer, programmed with an individual's history, will ask the questions, analyze the answers, and decide whether a person is lying or telling the truth.
In 1991 the Office of Security Services, working with the Mathematics Branch of the Research and Sigint Technology Division, issued a contract aimed at elevating the computer from simply a passive display to an active analyst. The lead contractor on the project, Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory, was able to develop a system called Polygraph Assisted Scoring System (PASS) using a briefcase-sized AXCITON computerized polygraph. Unlike evaluation by humans, which sometimes took days or even weeks to produce a final decision, the computerized procedure finishes within two or three minutes of the exam. Using both a history of the. individual's past tests and his or her own physiological makeup, the computer comes up with a statistical probability concerning the meaning of test results.
Although with the PASS system examiners would still make the final determination, their future does not look bright. Early testing indicates that computerized analysis is more accurate and produces fewer inconclusive results than human- administered tests. According to one NSA document, "In the near future, it may even be possible for the computer to ask the test questions -- eliminating any possibility of the examiner's affecting the test results."
But despite the growing dependence on the polygraph, the box is far from infallible, as Norman Ansley, chief of NSA's Polygraph Division during the 1980s, once admitted. Asked whether someone addicted to drugs and alcohol could beat the box, his answer was "Possibly," if that person "had practiced dissociation by thinking of something else." Which is precisely why many both inside and outside government distrust the machines. "Polygraphing has been described as a 'useful, if unreliable' investigative tool," said the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 1999. Given such questionable data, the panel asked CIA director George J. Tenet and FBI director Louis J. Freeh to assess "alternative technologies to the polygraph." The newest agency to use the polygraph is the Department of Energy, in its nuclear weapons labs. One scientist noted in the DoE employee newsletter that the expected error rate is about 2 percent. "In our situation," he said, "that's 100 innocent people out of 5,000 whose reputations and careers would be blemished."
After the polygraph, NSA applicants undergo a battery of psychological tests to determine their suitability for both employment and access to the agency's highly classified materials. A clinical psychologist interviews 90 percent of all applicants.
All the information obtained about an applicant from the polygraph, psychological testing, and the full field investigation is then put together and brought before NSA's Applicant Review Panel, comprising representatives from the personnel, medical, and security offices. The board examines each applicant on what the agency calls the "total person" principle and either gives the candidate a thumbs-up or refers the case to the director of personnel for a "We regret to inform you" letter.
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CHAPTER THIRTEEN: SOUL
TRZAV DUZR QYKZYVTQXY DQUVT SZYBQYGVT BZ SFZGK VSZYZRQVT ODPUW RDAAZGGWW ROZWI UPVBZRZDPU DI YOZGW ODPUW GSBWV NMMNDWKWNS MOlKWRD PROVWSC WS OICRSKWSR FNSCRDD RPRFKWNSD SEYEAKO RHAZ ACR OZHNEDL, YEUU LCZFBNBLC FCABSHZEBA JBYYF TAFHOUR: HOAKR HOPJU HFA MCYQHFAEOC TJFEB MFEUACMU
As mysterious as the agency itself are the tens of thousands of nameless and faceless people who populate NSA's secret city. According to various agency statistics, the average employee is forty-three years old, with between fourteen and eighteen years of experience. About 59 percent of the workers are male and 10 percent are members of racial and ethnic minorities. Sixty-three percent of the workforce has less than ten years' experience; 13 percent are in the military (including four generals and admirals), 27 percent are veterans, 3.3 percent are retired military, and 5 percent are disabled. In addition to civilian and military employees, 2,300 contractors are employed full-time at the agency.
If NSA were considered as a corporation, then, in terms of dollars spent, floor space occupied, and personnel employed, it would rank in the top 10 percent of Fortune 500 companies. In 1993 NSA spent over $9.4 million on air travel; more than 90 percent of the flights originated at nearby Baltimore-Washington International Airport. On behalf of NSA employees residing in Maryland, NSA paid approximately $65 million in 1993 state income taxes on gross salaries totaling approximately $930 million.
But beyond the numbing statistics, the men and women who disappear through the double steel fences every day are both extraordinary and ordinary. They constitute the largest collection of mathematicians and linguists in the country and possibly the world, and they are civil servants angry over how far they must park from their building. Some spend their day translating messages in Sinhalese (spoken in Sri Lanka), or delving into the upper reaches of combinatorics and Galois theory. One woman knows everything on earth about tires. "She's known as the 'tire lady,' said one of NSA's customers in the intelligence community. "She's the tire specialist. Embargoed airplanes need tires and when you're trying to embargo somebody it's the little things that take on major importance. If somebody is shipping jet fighter tires to Iran you want to know what kind of fighter they go on."
Most NSA staffers could be anyone's neighbor. Some wear suits to work every day, but most dress less formally. "There is no dress code at all," complained one fashion-conscious former Russian linguist, who called NSA a "haven for geeks and nerds." "I saw a guy wearing yellow pants, yellow shirt, and yellow sweater vest," she said. "A lot of guys don't dress that well."
When he has time, Brent Morris performs magic at his children's school in Columbia, Maryland. At NSA, he is a senior cryptologic mathematician. Morris got hooked on magic at the age of five when he saw Buffalo Bob perform a trick on the Howdy Doody television show. In high school he learned the perfect card shuffle while studying the connection between math and magic. At NSA, Morris used the perfect shuffle to help develop a method of random and sequential accessing of computer memories. Later the shuffle helped him work out a method of sorting computer information. Morris also served as the executive secretary of the NSA Scientific Advisory Board.
By day Eileen Buckholtz works in NSA's Telecommunications and Computer Services Organization. But by night she is "Rebecca York," the author of a series of romantic suspense novels published by Harlequin. Her co-author is married to another NSAer. And Frederick Bulinski of the agency's Programs and Resources Organization was inducted into the Polka Music Hall of Fame, has released eight albums, and organizes "Polkamotion by the Ocean," a popular yearly festival in Ocean City, Maryland.
One unique study, done by longtime NSA employee Gary L. Grantham, examined the character, styles, traits, and. personalities of NSA's management. "The results show that the personality of NSA lead ership is substantially different as a group from the general population of the United States," he concluded. "NSA management is more introverted in dealing with situations, more impersonal in making judgments, and more likely to come to conclusions about their environment than is the general population." Grantham explained that the reason that NSA managers were more shy and impersonal had largely to do with "the highly technical mission of the organization and the large numbers of college- trained employees and those with military background where similar personality traits are found."
The study, "Who Is NSA," was conducted as part of a program at the National War College. NSA granted Grantham access to the results of a test, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which was given to NSA senior executives and supervisors. The tests indicated that almost two-thirds of the officials were introverted in the way they dealt with "the outer world." "This contrasts markedly with the general population in the U.S.," said the study, "where extraverting [sic] types make up about 75 percent." NSA officials were also far more "thinking" oriented than the outside world, which was more "feeling" in its professional relationships. "The average NSA manager is more introverted than the general public, much more intuitive, more thinking, and more judging." "You can always tell an NSA extrovert," goes one old agency joke. "He looks at your shoe tips instead of his."
"The great predominance of introverts (64%) means that most NSA managers have greater powers of concentration," the study concluded, "and go deeply into their work by focusing on the underlying concepts and ideas in the pursuit of real understanding. They may be reluctant to consider their work finished and get rid of it. They are not likely to be affected by a lack of praise or encouragement since their focus is on their inner world. If they assume that everyone around them has the same attitude about the world as they do, they may fail to recognize the needs of the extraverts around them for praise. By the same token, the introverts' inner-directed view of the world is often confusing to those around them, including other introverts."
Finally, the study suggested a secret city run by a cold, aloof, detached management. "The predominance of thinking types among managers at NSA is significant in that their preferred way of judging is impersonal, logical, and analytic. While that approach is decidedly more useful in solving task-oriented problems, the people side of managing will suffer. Thinking types expect to be recognized for their competence. Their rewards are responsibility, titles, and raises. They may forget, or not be aware, that one-fourth of their subordinates are feeling types who occasionally need praise and need to be appreciated for who they are, doing a job. According to one observer, 'a "T" [thinking type] thinks that if you haven't been fired, you should know you are doing a good job.'
"The overwhelming preference among NSA managers for judging reflects a choice for system and order. They are organizers who thrive on making decisions, schedules, and programs, and are disconcerted by disruptions or unplanned occurrences. They are less tolerant, less openminded and less flexible than their perceptive co-workers who often put off making a decision because they are not sure they have enough information. The potential for conflict is great."
For many, if not most, the initial excitement of working in the nation's largest and most secret spy agency gradually gives way to routine. "From my perspective," said Tami McCaslin, associate editor of the NSA Newsletter, "isolated in the depths of the Newsletter office, I sometimes fail to see how the rest of the world can be so intrigued by this (in my mind) typical government bureaucracy."
As diverse as the workforce is, there is one thing ,they all have in common: you won't find them talking about their jobs, even when they're sharing a meal in the cafeteria with someone from the next office. The operative rule is "Don't tell, don't ask" about work. The very first subject addressed in the NSA Handbook, given to all new residents of the secret city, is the "practice of anonymity." "Perhaps one of the first security practices with which new NSA personnel should become acquainted is the practice of anonymity...." says the report. "Anonymity means that NSA personnel are encouraged not to draw attention to themselves nor to their association with this Agency. NSA personnel are also cautioned neither to confirm nor deny any specific questions about NSA activities directed to them by individuals not affiliated with the Agency." Finally, the handbook warns: "The ramifications of the practice of anonymity are rather far reaching."
Those seeking employment with NSA are told little about the actual work of the organization. "It has become commonplace in recent years to describe NSA as super-secret -- 'the hush-hush Agency,'" said an editorial in NSA's highly secret NSA Technical Journal "NSA, with missions so interwoven in the fabric of national security, necessarily has had to forgo all custom of public statement, to eschew the press releases which over the years might build an inviting public image and make its worth known to the American people. Though mindful of the dictates of security, NSA knows too that security can have an adverse effect on recruitment -- the lifeline of any institution. Indeed, so little can be said that the acceptance of employment with NSA is virtually an act of faith."
Concerned over the failure to reach recruits with critical high-tech abilities because of the agency's obsession with secrecy, the editorial's author suggested getting the following message out to the scientific academic community: "We in NSA comprise a scientific and technological community that is unique in the United States, unique in the western world and perhaps unique in the entire world. We work on problems which no other agency works on. We develop and utilize devices which are in advance of those that have been developed or are utilized by any other agency or any organization in the entire United States. We are confronted with an ever-changing challenge of greater complexity, of greater scope, and of correspondingly greater depth and difficulty than any other changing challenge on the rapidly evolving frontier of science and technology. If you can qualify, you will find NSA a stimulating and rewarding place to work. If you are interested, we can tell you a little more but not much more. One of the qualifications is faith." Still nervous even over that bland description, the editorial added, "Before you send it -- better check it out with Security."
More recently, the agency has made a few reluctant public references to cryptology and signals intelligence. "Your challenge," says one brochure directed at mathematicians, "is to use algebra, number theory, combinatorics, statistics, even cryptology and other skills to create -- or break -- nearly impenetrable codes and ciphers." Another said, "The challenge is to use probability, statistics, Fourier analysis, Galois theory, stochastic processes and other techniques to outwit the world experts in creating or breaking codes and ciphers." But beyond that, no more is said.
"We're looking for those special few," goes one NSA recruitment pitch, "who are up to this ultimate test." Some are hired while still in college, through a minority scholarship program known as the Undergraduate Training Program. The students work at NSA during summers, then receive full-time offers upon graduation. The program is highly competitive. Of the 600 to 800 high school students who apply each year, only a small percentage are selected. In 1999 there were seventy-nine participants attending a variety of schools, including Harvard, MIT, Princeton, and Cornell. Not everyone, however, is happy about the program. "It is appalling," complained one employee, "to see such a blatant case of reverse discrimination being sponsored by the Agency."
Other opportunities for those in college are offered by the agency's Co-operative Education Program, which allows about four dozen students to spend their college years alternating semesters between fulltime work and full-time study. In 1997, about 80 percent of the graduates chose to remain with the agency. "Our recruiting strategy has historically been built on excitement of the mission," said Deputy Director for Services Terry Thompson in 1999. "And that's why our Co-op programs are so vital to us because when we get people in here before they make the big career decision when they graduate, and find out about the excitement of the mission."
Traditionally, prospective employees were marched in groups through the agency, like draftees, for numerous interviews, tests, and polygraph exams. Only at the completion of the process -- it normally took about seven months -- would some of those prospects be matched to a particular job and offered employment. But by then many had already accepted better-paying jobs from private industry, and the agency was forced to dig deeper in the pool. Those not called would remain in limbo.
Stung by tough competition paying top dollar for information technology personnel, the agency in 1999 initiated a streamlined hiring process based more on private industry than on the local draft board. Only a few schools were targeted, so that strong relationships with them could be established. Students were given more detailed job descriptions than the agency had offered in the past, as well as a better explanation of the benefits of working at the cutting edge of technology. A private firm was hired to scan resumes into an NSA-only Internet site. The company then helped match the resumes to specific jobs. An e-mail address was created (njobs@fggm.osis.gov) for the submission of resumes. Finally, in order to accelerate the process, initial screening was done over the telephone.
Those selected are then brought to headquarters for interviews; they undertake a battery of standardized tests and are assigned NSA "buddies" to help sell them on the agency and the surrounding community. The exams are designed to measure a person's general knowledge as well as his or her "cipher brain" -- the special abilities needed for the tedious, sometimes mind-numbing, work of a cryptanalyst or other cryptologic staffer. Although codebreaking and codemaking are what most people think of in terms of occupations at NSA, "they undoubtedly represent a declining percentage of the Agency's work force," said a recent internal document. This results from growth in other areas, such as personnel and employee services.
One math major who recently went through the process, hoping to become one of the agency's 600 mathematicians, found it "very humanely organized." He was fingerprinted and asked to fill out a thick "Statement of Personal History" containing detailed questions concerning addresses, travel, and activities over the past ten years. "Getting through that required me to think plenty about whether I wanted to go through it all," he said.
Next, he was invited down to Fort Meade, assigned an escort, and paraded through a gauntlet of interviews. The escort, a fellow mathematician, took on the buddy role, answering. questions in a candid, off-the-record manner, and putting in occasional plugs for the agency. The candidate was surprised to find that every official who interviewed him was very familiar with his resume, down to the marks on his transcripts. "I've never had that happen before," he said.
His first interview was with the head of the mathematicians' training unit, who described the three-year program the applicant would have to complete, beginning with a long course at the National Cryptologic School. He and about forty other newly hired students, some just out of college and some with Ph.D.s, would get a quick review of higher algebra followed by deep involvement in the cryptologic aspects of mathematics. Normally the course work would involve two hours of lectures every day, followed by six hours of study. Lining one wall of the official's office were photos of the three classes of mathematician trainees then in the pipeline.
After a candidate undergoes interviews and submits a variety of paperwork, such as letters of reference, his or her name is sent to the twenty-four-member Mathematicians Hiring Committee. During one of the committee's monthly meetings, the person is discussed and voted on. The views of the escorts are never solicited nor are they questioned on their conversations with the candidate. Results of the vote, yea or nay, are immediately sent out by e-mail.
Those who make the final cut -- in recent years about 100 of the 2,000 or so people who applied annually -- are then given a conditional offer of employment. Next they begin their processing at the agency's four-story Airport Square Building a few miles away in the FANX compound. There, the new recruits spend their first day filling out forms and getting a medical checkup.
The next hurdle is the intensive background investigation conducted on all prospective employees by the Defense Security Service. Known as an SSBI (for Single-Scope Background Investigation; it is also known within NSA as a Special Background Investigation), it includes a "National Agency Check" -- a check of all federal investigative agencies for derogatory information. Birth records and citizenship are verified. Finally, education, employment, credit files, and local court records are checked for the previous ten years. A neighborhood search for dirt is also conducted at addresses listed for the past decade.
Rob Fuggetta, who lives in Odenton, Maryland, near NSA, recalled when a government investigator knocked on his door in the mid-1980s and began quizzing him about his neighbor, a high school student looking for a summer job at NSA. The questions started off routine, he said, but soon turned very personal. "Do you know if he's a homosexual? Does he use drugs or alcohol? Does he go to church frequently? What can you tell me about his home life? Does he get along with his parents?"
"Appropriate character" is what NSA was looking for, according to Bill Shores, in charge of NSA's college recruitment program at the time. That someone is homosexual or a drug user, per se, "does not mean [he or she] can't come to work for NSA," he said, but "a person that has something to hide would not be a good security risk."
NSA officials are fighting a new proposal by the Defense Security Service to abandon neighborhood in-person visits in favor of simple telephone calls. The DSS argues that it can no longer afford such costly and time-consuming procedures. Pointing out that NSA is only one of its customers, DSS officials say that they must conduct more than 250,000 background investigations of government and contractor personnel each year, leading to tremendous backlogs. At the same time, the agency is behind on tens of thousands of five-year updates required for the 3 million federal employees and contractors who hold active security clearances. Thus, by 2000, DSS's total backlog was a whopping 900,000 investigations. On top of those problems, DSS personnel have been cut back about 40 percent in recent years, from 4,300 employees in the mid-1980s to 2,500 in 1998.
A survey done in 1999 discovered that 94 percent of the background investigations DSS conducted for NSA were incomplete and not up to federal standards. That same year, a routine reinvestigation polygraph examination resulted in the arrest of Daniel King, a Navy petty officer working for NSA. King, an eighteen-year veteran, was arrested on October 28 and charged with espionage for allegedly confessing to mailing a computer disk to the Russian embassy five years earlier. The disk allegedly contained supersensitive details on NSA's undersea cabletapping operations against the Russians.
After the SSBI is completed, the results are sent back to NSA for evaluation.
The next phase takes them down a narrow passageway to an area of small offices that sends shivers down the backs of most candidates: Polygraph Services. Within the tiny beige offices, new, computerized polygraph machines sit on wood- rain desktops and are attached to monitors that display the recruit's physiological responses in a variety of formats. Among the data recorded, according to an NSA document, are the individual's "respiration, electro-dermal responses, pulse rate, pulse amplitude, vascular volume, capillary volume, vascular pressure, capillary pressure, and bodily movement as recorded by pneumograph, galvanograph, cardiosphygmograph, plethysmograph and cardio activity monitors, which are sections of polygraph instruments." Watching the graphics form sharp peaks and deep valleys is one of the agency's several dozen certified examiners. Many of the questions they ask come from the results of the SSBI.
On the other side of the desk, the applicant sits in a large, heavily padded, executive-type swivel chair. Electrodes are attached to the fingers; rubber tubes are strapped around the chest; and a bulky blood pressure cuff fits around the upper arm. What the examiners are looking for are significant changes from the subject's baseline chart. These may be as dramatic as a total cessation of breathing or a major increase in blood pressure -- or as subtle as a slight decrease in skin resistance.
The Armed Forces Security Agency began the polygraph program in May 1951 with the hiring of six examiners at annual salaries of $6,400. The program was introduced because the agency was growing so quickly that background investigations could not be completed fast enough for the hiring program. More than 1,000 people had been hired but could not be cleared until their background investigation was finished, which because of the Korean War was taking from nine to eighteen months. By 1953 NSA was giving polygraphs to all job applicants. The questioning was originally conducted in a well-guarded, ominous-looking building at 1436 U Street, NW, in Washington, before the office moved to the Operations Building and then to FANX.
The polygraph remains the most dreaded part of NSA's admission ritual. "Polygraph! The word alone is enough to set your nerves on edge," began one article on the machine in NSA's in-house newsletter. It is also, by far, the most important part of that ritual. According to a study at NSA, 78 percent of all information used in evaluating an applicant as a security risk comes from the polygraph reports. Only 22 percent of the information is based on the background investigations.
From July 1983 to June 1984 the agency administered a total of 11,442 examinations. Of those, 4,476 were given to job applicants. From that group, 1,875 dropped out voluntarily for a variety of reasons. Of the remaining 2,601, 793 were rejected by the agency's Applicant Review Panel, composed of personnel, security, and medical managers. As an example of the power of the box, a whopping 90 percent of those (714 of 793) were booted because of bad polygraph results. During the first half of 1984 a total of 1,202 contractors were strapped to the machine, and 167 were shown the door after leaving the polygraph room.
The polygraph sessions earned a black eye during the 1950s and early 1960s because of the agency's heavy dependence on the EPQ, or embarrassing personal question. EPQs are almost inevitably directed toward intimate aspects of a person's sex life and bear little relationship to his or her honesty or patriotism. Following a congressional investigation and an internal crackdown, the personal questions became somewhat tamer but abuses have occasionally continued.
"The worst experience of my life," said one former NSA Russian linguist, "was the lie-detector test." After starting out with questions about shoplifting, the polygraph operator quickly turned to sex, asking if she was into bestiality. "If you have sex, they want to know how much. If you have too much sex, they get scared. If you don't have sex, they think you're gay. At the time I wasn't dating anybody and they kept wanting to know, 'Why don't you have a boyfriend?'" That test was given in 1993. More recently, NSA claims, the questions have been less intrusive.
Contractor employees were first required to take polygraphs in 1957. And in 1982, following a damaging spy scandal at Britain's GCHQ, military personnel assigned to NSA were first required to be strapped to the box. The military entrance polygraph is conducted by the military services on military assignees before their acceptance for a position at NSA and is directed toward counterintelligence questions.
At the same time, a five-year reinvestigation polygraph examination, which also focuses on counterintelligence-related questions, was introduced for all employees. Still another polygraph program, the special access examination, was instituted to test employees about to be assigned to especially sensitive programs within NSA. Those tested under this program are asked both counterintelligence and, under certain circumstances, "suitability" -- personal -- questions.
Finally, again in 1982, NSA instituted a dreaded policy of unscheduled "aperiodic" counterintelligence polygraph examinations. One purpose of these tests is to look for spies; another is to look for leakers. According to a memo from the director, civilian employees who refused to consent faced "termination of employment." The agency, said one senior NSA official, asked the Justice Department to investigate about four leaks a year during the first half of the 1980s.
Among the topics covered during NSA's counterintelligence polygraph examination are the following.
• knowledge of, participation in, or commission of acts of espionage or sabotage against the United States
• knowledge of, approaches to, or giving or selling any classified information or material to unauthorized persons
• unauthorized or unreported foreign contacts
The idea of suddenly being called from an office, strapped to a machine, and asked whether you have been selling secrets to the Russians or leaking information to the press might leave "the work force at NSA ... shocked," said Philip T. Pease, the chief of the Office of Security at NSA. As a result, employees were called to the Friedman Auditorium for a series of town meetings during which the new procedures were discussed.
Under the aperiodic exam program, the agency, without notice, pulled 1,770 people into the polygraph rooms in 1983. Of those, 1,699 were thanked and sent on their way. Seventy-one, however, were asked to come back for a further interview, which cleared all but four. They returned for a third round of drilling but were eventually also allowed to return to work, presumably a few pounds lighter. According to the chief of the Polygraph Division, Norman Ansley, the problems ranged across the board. One individual had kept a classified manual at his residence for several years. Another person knew of the improper destruction of crypto keying material. Still another described a suspicious approach by foreign personnel but had failed to report the incident at the time it took place.
After the test, the examiner reviews the individual's charts and makes a final decision on the results. "NSR" (no significant response) means that there were no unresolved issues. "SPR" (specific physiological response) signifies that the individual reacted consistently to a specific question. "INC" (inconclusive) means that the test results could not be interpreted. And "incomplete" signifies that the test was not finished. When issues are unresolved, the individual is requested to return to the box for retesting.
Once completed, the examiner's report is forwarded to quality control for an independent review of accuracy and analysis and to ensure that all issues have been covered. From there it travels to the Clearance Division for adjudication. The polygraph examiner does not make any clearance decisions. His or her sole purpose is to verify the validity of the information being provided during the interview and to resolve any matters that are causing the person difficulty in passing the test.
A unique insight into the NSA polygraph program comes from an analysis of 20,511 applicants between 1974 and 1979. Of those, 695 (3.4 percent) admitted to the commission of a felony. In nearly all cases the perpetrator had gone undetected. The admissions included murder, armed robbery, forcible rape, burglary, arson, embezzlement, hit-and-run driving with personal injury, thefts of expensive items or large amounts of money, smuggling, and wholesale selling of illegal drugs.
One person who applied to NSA proved to be a fugitive who, during questioning under the polygraph, admitted firing a rifle into his estranged wife's home in an attempt to murder her. Another confessed to firing his shotgun at six people, and hitting all of them. He had been charged with attempted murder but not tried because of lack of evidence. Still another told of setting fire to the trailer in which his ex-wife and their child lived. A veteran admitted to a polygraph operator that while in Vietnam he had murdered a young girl. On a later occasion he stabbed a stranger in the face with a knife in an argument over some beer. And an applicant for an engineering position -- who was employed as an engineer by another government agency -- blurted out that he had shot and wounded his second wife and that his present wife was missing under unusual circumstances, which he would not explain. He also suddenly declared that his engineering degree was phony.
Even espionage has turned up during polygraph examinations. One applicant with access to Top Secret/Codeword intelligence who was about to retire from the military described making several visits to the Soviet embassy to make arrangements to defect to the Soviet Union. The Russians took copies of his classified documents and when they found out he had applied to NSA for employment, they encouraged him to continue.
Another applicant, who had access to classified information while in the military, confessed that he would sell classified information to a foreign intelligence service if he could get enough money. And one person looking for a job at NSA eventually admitted that much of his background was falsified and that he had worked as a scientific adviser to the chief of a foreign military intelligence agency.
Most significantly, the NSA study indicated serious questions about highly cleared military personnel assigned to NSA's Central Security Service. At the time, service members were not subject to the polygraph. During the five-year period of the survey, 2,426 of these SCI-cleared military personnel applied for employment with NSA as civilians. Of that number, thirteen admitted that either they themselves or someone they knew had been involved in espionage. Another twenty-five told of passing classified information to Communists or terrorists.
In the early 1990s NSA became the first intelligence or defense agency to completely computerize its polygraph program -- the first major change in the art of polygraphy since 1940. According to NSA officials, the computerized polygraph equipment was found to be more ac curate than conventional methods because it could record signals at maximum sensitivity. The computer also allows the examiner to change how the data are displayed on the screen without changing the base data, thus protecting the validity of the test.
The agency is currently working on ways to almost completely eliminate all human involvement in the polygraph process. In the near future an Orwellian computer, programmed with an individual's history, will ask the questions, analyze the answers, and decide whether a person is lying or telling the truth.
In 1991 the Office of Security Services, working with the Mathematics Branch of the Research and Sigint Technology Division, issued a contract aimed at elevating the computer from simply a passive display to an active analyst. The lead contractor on the project, Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory, was able to develop a system called Polygraph Assisted Scoring System (PASS) using a briefcase-sized AXCITON computerized polygraph. Unlike evaluation by humans, which sometimes took days or even weeks to produce a final decision, the computerized procedure finishes within two or three minutes of the exam. Using both a history of the. individual's past tests and his or her own physiological makeup, the computer comes up with a statistical probability concerning the meaning of test results.
Although with the PASS system examiners would still make the final determination, their future does not look bright. Early testing indicates that computerized analysis is more accurate and produces fewer inconclusive results than human- administered tests. According to one NSA document, "In the near future, it may even be possible for the computer to ask the test questions -- eliminating any possibility of the examiner's affecting the test results."
But despite the growing dependence on the polygraph, the box is far from infallible, as Norman Ansley, chief of NSA's Polygraph Division during the 1980s, once admitted. Asked whether someone addicted to drugs and alcohol could beat the box, his answer was "Possibly," if that person "had practiced dissociation by thinking of something else." Which is precisely why many both inside and outside government distrust the machines. "Polygraphing has been described as a 'useful, if unreliable' investigative tool," said the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 1999. Given such questionable data, the panel asked CIA director George J. Tenet and FBI director Louis J. Freeh to assess "alternative technologies to the polygraph." The newest agency to use the polygraph is the Department of Energy, in its nuclear weapons labs. One scientist noted in the DoE employee newsletter that the expected error rate is about 2 percent. "In our situation," he said, "that's 100 innocent people out of 5,000 whose reputations and careers would be blemished."
After the polygraph, NSA applicants undergo a battery of psychological tests to determine their suitability for both employment and access to the agency's highly classified materials. A clinical psychologist interviews 90 percent of all applicants.
All the information obtained about an applicant from the polygraph, psychological testing, and the full field investigation is then put together and brought before NSA's Applicant Review Panel, comprising representatives from the personnel, medical, and security offices. The board examines each applicant on what the agency calls the "total person" principle and either gives the candidate a thumbs-up or refers the case to the director of personnel for a "We regret to inform you" letter.
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