Prometheus embattled: A post-9/11 report card on the National Security Agency

Abstract

Five years after the tragic events of September 11, 2001, the National Security Agency (NSA) has risen to the position of being the largest and most powerful intelligence agency in the US. Working in close conjunction with its English-speaking partners overseas, NSA is today the most prolific producer of top-quality intelligence information reaching senior US government policymakers and field commanders. But press reports over the past year concerning the Agency's controversial domestic eavesdropping program and problem-plagued modernization effort, have raised serious questions once again about the competency of the Agency's long-troubled management practices, as well as whether NSA, at the behest of the Bush administration, exceeded its legal authority by extending its operations into the US for the first time since the mid-1970s in contravention of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978.