Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency (87 page)

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
cable-tapping 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-grain
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.