CNN Insight

Inside The U.S. National Security Agency

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

JONATHAN MANN, INSIGHT (voice-over): The highest technology, the deepest secrets.

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MAUREEN BAGINSKI, DIRECTOR, NSA SIGNALS INTELLIGENCE: Secrets worth knowing, data that no one else can get.

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MANN: But should anyone have that information?

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JAMES BAMFORD, AUTHOR, "BODY OF SECRETS": NSA is an enormously powerful agency. It's far more powerful than anybody really realizes.

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MANN: And what is it doing with that power?

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LT. GEN. MICHAEL HAYDEN, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY Could there be abuses? Of course. Would there be? I'm looking you and the American people in the eye and saying there are not.

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MANN (on camera): Hello, and welcome.

The CIA is more famous. The KGB was more feared. But in the world of espionage, there is an organization that is less known and perhaps more insidious. It is the National Security Agency, the NSA. Few people outside the United States have ever heard of it, but maybe they haven't been listening.

The NSA is listening to communications around the world, listening to phone calls, computer messages, radio links between Russian subs and their home ports, looking for information about Washington's enemies, would-be enemies, presumed enemies or just about anyone it wants - except, by law, U.S. citizens themselves.

That's a scary prospect, and the truth is the NSA doesn't want to frighten people. So it invited CNN's David Ensor in for a rare glimpse inside.

On our program today - a look at the place where they listen in.

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DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From its headquarters in Fort Mead, Maryland, America's largest spy agency eavesdrops on literally billions of communications worldwide, using radar and microwave receptors around the world, military-intelligence satellites, strategically placed bugging equipment and the biggest accumulation of computer power in any one building on earth, to crack adversary secret codes.

MAUREEN BAGINSKI, DIRECTOR, NSA SIGNALS INTELLIGENCE: We are about secrets worth knowing, foreign intelligence.

JAMES BAMFORD, AUTHOR, "BODY OF SECRETS": The NSA is an enormously powerful agency. It's far more powerful than anybody really realizes.

ENSOR: The headquarters is a vast, city-sized complex, reported to have over 38,000 employees, more than twice the size of the CIA, a secret world where much of the trash is classified and has to be pulped on site before it can return to the unclassified world outside.

With sophisticated technology, NSA listens in on terrorists, Iraqi scientists or Russian generals, and then delivers intelligence to decision- makers from the president in the White House, down to the pilot in the cockpit of an F-15.

RICHARD BERARDINO, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SECURITY OPERATIONS CENTER: The ops tempo can be very high. We can be dealing with more than one crisis at a time.

ENSOR: When a crisis hits, the blue lights go on in the NSA's Operations Center, the nerve center of its worldwide network. A red, flashing light warns of the presence of visitors from CNN without security clearance. Sound recording in the room is forbidden. This is where the call went out to the White House that the USS Cole had been hit by a terrorist bomb in Yemen.

In time of war, military units rush to set up remote intelligence points like this one for ground commanders. NSA sends them targeting and other intelligence.

LT. GEN. MICHAEL HAYDEN, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY: It's hard for me to talk about it in detail. But in the last air operation over Kosovo, for example, we were as much in the operational fight as any aspect of America's armed forces.

ENSOR: It was simpler during the Cold War when NSA had one major target -- the Soviet Union. Now, there are many new targets and problems. Encryption, secret codes that can be bought by anybody or downloaded off the Internet, fiber-optic cable that cannot easily be tapped -- they threaten NSA's ability to eavesdrop on adversaries from Saddam Hussein to Colombian drug lords. U.S. officials say, for example, that the group headed by accused terrorist Osama bin Laden has put encrypted messages to its members on public Web sites.

But the NSA's biggest problem? In the information age, it is drowning in data.

BAGINSKI: Where we are today is there's too much of it, and it's too hard to understand. So it is a volume, velocity and variety problem for us.

BAMFORD: NSA is definitely an agency in crisis right now because the world has shifted under its foundation.

ENSOR: In early 2000, the flood of data overwhelmed NSA's vast complex of supercomputers. For three and a half days, the overloaded system simply shut down.

(on camera): How did that happen? Why did that happen?

HAYDEN: The computer system went down. We lost the ability to process. The real cause was this inability to grow a system that could meet our true operational needs.

ENSOR (on camera): NSA officials say their computer problems have been fixed, but they are asking Congress for billions of new dollars to fund TRAILBLAZER, a computer system that would better process and extract useful intelligence from the vast quantities of information that NSA collects around the world.

(voice-over): For some, the awesome power of NSA's technology and its secrecy are a source of concern.

BARRY STEINHARDT, ACLU: What's happening, of course, is that the NSA says, "Trust us, we're the government. We won't abuse the law." Of course, what they're really saying is: "Trust us, we're the government spies, and we won't abuse the law." But since there is no real check on them, there's no way to know that.

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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Satellite imagery coming through.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Request keyhole visual tasking, maximum resolution.

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ENSOR: In the 1998 movie, "Enemy of the State, " NSA was portrayed by Hollywood as an evil big brother spying on Americans.

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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Let's get into his life.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: The government's been in bed with the entire telecommunications business since the '40s. They have infected everything. They can get into your bank statements, computer files, e-mail, listen to your phone calls.

WILL SMITH, ACTOR: My wife's been saying that for years.

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HAYDEN: I made the judgment that we couldn't survive with the popular impression of this agency being formed by the last Will Smith movie.

ENSOR: When General Michael Hayden saw the movie, he saw a problem -- an image problem. That is in part why the NSA decided to let CNN inside the NSA to see where code breakers gather and code makers protect the nation's secrets. Above all, Hayden knows NSA cannot afford to be seen as trampling on the privacy rights of U.S. citizens.

HAYDEN: It has to be somewhat a secretive agency, OK, and right in the middle of a political culture that just trusts two things most of all - - power and secrecy. That's a challenge for us, and that's why, frankly, we're trying to explain what it is we do for America, how it is we follow the law. Could there be abuses? Of course. Would there be? I am looking you and the American people in the eye and saying there are not.

ENSOR: Hayden says NSA has not spied on Americans since the '70s, after it was found to be eavesdropping on Jane Fonda, Dr. Benjamin Spock, and other anti-Vietnam war activists. At that time the law was tightened up.

But when, for example, eavesdropping on a drug ring in Colombia, separating the foreigners, who can be legally bugged, from the U.S. citizens or residents who cannot, is not always easy. And the NSA gets pressure from law enforcement agencies to help out with such cases.

BAMFORD: It's a battle that goes on behind the lines in a great deal of secrecy. And how close they get to the line, or whether they slip over sometimes is a matter that has to be watched closely.

ENSOR: In Europe, the debate about the NSA and privacy centers around these surveillance facilities in Menwithill, England. A European Parliament report suggested there may have been economic espionage by the U.S. to help American companies against European competitors.

(on camera): Is that true?

HAYDEN: No, and I really welcome the opportunity, I'm glad you asked the question. That is absolutely not true.

(on camera): However, Hayden says if the NSA detects law-breaking, by law, it must inform other U.S. agencies, like the State Department. So if, for example, it learns that a foreign company is using bribery to try to obtain a contract, that information does not remain a secret.

David Ensor, CNN, Fort Meade, Maryland.

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MANN: After the break, David Ensor is back with us, talking about creating codes and catching double agents. Stay with us.

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ENSOR: Are you confident, as you sit here now, that there is no serious spy working here in this agency?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is it something I'm worried about as on my front burner? The answer is no.

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MANN: Welcome back.

The National Security Agency spies on the world outside, but it also has to be wary of adversaries who try to break in. The agency's dependence on high-tech equipment also makes it vulnerable to computer hackers and double agents who could circumvent the system.

The threat exists at the NSA's headquarters and in U.S. government premises around the world. Here's CNN's David Ensor once again.

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DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At its headquarters outside Washington, the National Security Agency creates codes and secure communications systems for the U.S. government from the president on down. The NSA puts a secure telephone in every senior U.S. official's office all over the world.

(on camera): So while I'm talking to you, everyone is hearing the slightly delayed, slightly compressed but clear enough voice. But if anyone tries to tap into the line, they hear...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They hear noise. It's random information being sent. And it's unintelligible.

ENSOR (voice-over): But when it comes to protecting government computer systems...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are sorry. You are not identified.

ENSOR: ...the NSA's communications guardians have their work cut out for them. Many are not secure from hackers, who could be American teenagers or could-be foreign agents trying to steal national security secrets.

JON ROLF, NSA ENGINEERING SPECIALIST: We see hundreds of probes, perhaps thousands on a daily basis. So it's a constant game, if you will, of moving as quickly as your potential adversary, staying current on the technologies that are necessary to maintain the security and integrity of the networks.

ENSOR: At the NSA's biometrics lab, scientists are testing the next generation of security tools to keep unauthorized people out of computers and top-secret areas. Fingerprint identification...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Please move forward a little.

ENSOR: ...and iris identification are likely to replace passwords.

Face identification may be the wave of future. This system is keyed to recognize scientist Dave Murley.

DAVE MURLEY, NSA BIOMETRICS DIRECTOR: Boom, I'm into the system.

ENSOR: But can the system be fooled by a silicon rubber model?

(on camera): It doesn't seem to like it today.

MURLEY: And that's good news, David, because we wouldn't like people to be able to use a model like this to get into our systems.

ENSOR (voice-over): The system is also keyed to recognize scientist Bob Rahicka (ph).

MURLEY: The circle indicated that it found Bob's face. And now at the top of the screen you can see it has recognized Bob.

ENSOR: All well and good. But Bob has a twin brother named Doug, who also works at the NSA.

MURLEY: Let's see if the impostor can get in now.

ENSOR: Playing the role of the evil twin, Doug is rejected. But the scientists say the system still isn't good enough. It has problems, for example, with new mustaches, long bangs or a new nose ring.

MURLEY: A red laser is actually scanning your face. But it's absolutely eye safe. You have nothing to worry about.

ENSOR: They are also testing something that may be even better, a three-dimensional system.

(on camera): That is incredible.

(voice-over): But so is this, the world's largest collection of supercomputers in one building used for making as well as breaking codes. This Cray Triton supercomputer alone can handle 64 billion instructions per second.

(on camera): Though some U.S. secret codes have been given by spies to adversaries like the Soviet Union, NSA officials say they know of no critical American code systems that have ever been broken.

MICHAEL JACOBS, NSA INFORMATION ASSURANCE: That said, if it were happening, you can be sure it would be one of the most closely guarded secrets of any guarded government.

ENSOR (voice-over): In NSA's anachoic chamber, a massive cathedral of fire-retardant foam rubber spikes, scientists test signals from transmitters and antennae of every kind.

Even as the agency works to make sure U.S. signals cannot be decoded, it never stops trying to gather and decipher the signals of others.

It could be any office building, but Everette Jordan's workplace is one of the most unusual in the country. He cannot take his office keys home. He must punch in a code to get them each morning.

Everette Jordan is a spy, but not in the way you probably imagine. Everette Jordan listens.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING IN RUSSIAN)

EVERETTE JORDAN, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY LINGUIST: That particular style is called "rocking," called rocking on a word. And so you'll hear a word that you don't quite get, and you go back and forth over it a couple of times until you get it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING IN RUSSIAN)

ENSOR: He demonstrates with a Russian news broadcast, but the conversations he listens to, picked up by the NSA's worldwide array of powerful surveillance technology, could involve a Russian general, an Iraqi nuclear scientist or a terrorist.

JORDAN: You have to listen for -- for irony. You have to listen for sarcasm, for tension. You have to listen for rhetorical statements being made. You also have to listen for humor.

ENSOR: He is a gifted linguist -- fluent in Russian, Spanish, French, German, Arabic.

JORDAN: (SPEAKING IN ARABIC), which means the name of God, the merciful and compassionate, in Arabic.

ENSOR: What does he listen for? First and foremost, for threats to the U.S.

(on camera): Have you ever had the sense that you translated something that was of critical importance to U.S. national security?

JORDAN: Absolutely. There have been many cases, and that's one of the fun things about being a linguist, knowing that the work that you have done has gone right downtown to the president of the United States.

ENSOR: Have you ever found yourself listening to an American, a U.S. person, on a tape?

JORDAN: No.

ENSOR: And what do you do, what are the instructions -- you never have?

JORDAN: No, I haven't.

ENSOR: What are your instructions in the event you should find yourself listening to an American, a U.S. person on a tape?

JORDAN: We have very strict protocols toward handling that -- those sorts of situations, and really we erase the thing, but we also report that thus and such has happened.

ENSOR (voice-over): To say NSA employees are security conscious is putting it mildly. Everette Jordan is the first NSA listener ever to give a television interview.

Everywhere we filmed in the vast NSA complex, employees were warned. Most heeded the warning.

(on camera): Most of your colleagues would probably not be willing to give an interview like this.

JORDAN: You got that right.

ENSOR: Tell us why not. What would be the downside for them?

JORDAN: One of the ways that we're very successful is that the work that we do is very quiet, and in some cases, actually in many cases, our work force has been indoctrinated not to draw attention to themselves because, in some cases, they would have -- they would be traveling on official U.S. government business, and to sit here in front of a camera as an NSA employee is -- is something like killing one's career.

ENSOR (voice-over): But after appearing at job fairs and recruitment drives for the NSA, Everette Jordan is not living in the secret world anymore.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have noticed a high-frequency hearing loss in the high decibels.

ENSOR: The price of years of listening past the pops and screeches on surveillance tapes is frequent hearing checks, and some minor hearing loss, but Everette Jordan, though he hopes soon to move into management, says he wouldn't have wanted any other career up to this point: protecting the nation with his ears and his gift for languages.

For a super-secret agency that didn't even have a sign outside its headquarters until a few years ago, holding a job fair on site, inviting thousands of perfect strangers to line up for interviews was a radical break with the past.

The National Security Agency needs smart, young computer scientists, mathematicians, linguists if it is to keep collecting other nations' secrets in the information age. But there is a catch.

GEN. MICHAEL HAYDEN, NSA DIRECTOR: If any of these young folks decide to come work for us, we're going to put them through a process that no other employer is going to put them through. That background investigations and that polygraph before they can come and actually work for us.

ENSOR: The questions start simply enough.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is your middle name Frances?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

ENSOR: But they can soon get more than a little personal. Are you in debt? Have you ever committed a crime? Does your sexual behavior reflect lack of judgment or discretion? The questioner no longer asks, are you a homosexual? But NSA does want to know if an employee has a sexual partner who is not a U.S. citizen and anything a hostile intelligence agency might use for blackmail.

While NSA officials call the lie detector test a useful tool, it is clearly not perfect. While he was spying for Russia, CIA official Aldrich Ames passed twice. But the stakes are high. After all, the damage done by the alleged spying of the FBI's Robert Hanssen is much on the minds of U.S. intelligence officials.

They also haven't forgotten Ronald Pelton at the NSA, their former employee convicted in 1986 of spying for the Soviet Union.

HAYDEN: Everyone who works here has gone through a polygraph. Everyone who works here has gone through an extended background investigation. I can tell you as one who's gone through it, I don't like either of them.

ENSOR: Are you confident, as you sit here now, that there is no serious spy working here in this agency?

HAYDEN: Is it something I'm worried about as on my front burner? The answer is no. I mean, but would I ever say with absolute, you know, 1.0 certitude that we're safe? Equally no.

We work hard on this. It's an important part of our culture, the way we live.

ENSOR (voice-over): Secrecy, and a dose of what many would call paranoia are, indeed, part of the culture at NSA, the intelligence agency that eavesdrops on potential rivals and adversaries of the United States.

Linguist Everette Jordan is one of the listeners.

(on camera): What can you tell your family about what you do? Can you tell your family more than you're able to tell me?

JORDAN: Not too much more, actually. If you're going to be traveling, your family needs to know where you're going. But that's about it. Your children grow up with you knowing that either mom or dad or both work in a job that they really can't talk about.

ENSOR (voice-over): And the price exacted on private lives doesn't end there. NSA employees are told to report close ongoing relationships with non-Americans. They need permission to marry a foreigner and stay at the NSA. If a close relative marries one, NSA is to be notified.

(on camera): Here, at the National Security Agency, it is a subculture apart. In a nation that values openness and has never been all that comfortable with spying, people here snoop. And they keep secrets. And they do it in the name of the freedoms that Americans hold dear.

David Ensor, CNN, Fort Meade, Maryland.

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MANN: One last thing before we go - NSA employees do put up with a lot. But they have at least one nice perk in return. Virtually no one is ever fired. The reason for the job security is national security. One way to be sure disgruntled former employees don't sell their secrets is to keep them, keep everyone on staff or in gentle paid retirement.

That's INSIGHT for this day. I'm Jonathan Mann. The news continues.

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