The Spy Factory

There's a joke about just what the letters “NSA” stand for: to outsiders, it means “No Such Agency,” while NSA's own employees will tell you it means “Never Say Anything.” Either way, there's no denying that the National Security Agency of the United States is the largest, most secretive, and powerful intelligence-gathering agency in the world. In this fascinating episode of NOVA, the NSA is examined as closely as possible (given the shroud of secrecy that protects it) as the documentary heads towards a startling conclusion: eight years after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the NSA's capabilities, procedures, and technical limitations are such that the agency can provide virtually no assurance that similar attacks can be avoided in the future. Written by veteran investigative reporter James Bamford (and primarily based on his book The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America), NOVA's compelling investigation reveals that the NSA's procedural isolation and lack of inter-agency communication with the FBI and CIA led directly to the security vulnerabilities that made 9/11 possible. The NSA knew the identity of key 9/11 terrorist plotters and their whereabouts in the U.S. for more than a year, yet never shared that information with other agencies, opening the intelligence gap that allowed the 9/11 plot to be successfully executed. For five years, the NSA had also been monitoring al-Qaeda communications coming from a now-notorious house in Yemen that served as Osama bin Laden's logistics headquarters. Through further probing of the NSA's current abilities (including a fascinating demonstration of how a potentially threatening e-mail is tracked from a café in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to a data distribution center in San Luis Obispo, CA), it's made painfully obvious that the agency has not only failed to make us demonstrably more secure against terrorist attacks, but has also been eavesdropping on U.S. citizens, without warrant, since 2003. With all the trappings of a riveting spy novel, this documentary offers an eye-opening assessment of the NSA's operations in a world that has grown increasingly dependent on massive amounts of electronic communication. Highly recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (J. Shannon)