Keeping America's secrets safe

Working at the secretive NSA means opening up personal life

The National Security Agency didn't even have a sign outside its Maryland headquarters a few years ago, but now it is holding on-site job fairs to attract star applicants.

By David Ensor
CNN National Security Correspondent

FORT MEADE, Maryland (CNN) -- For a secret intelligence agency that didn't even have a sign outside its headquarters until a few years ago, holding its first on-site job fair and inviting thousands for interviews is a radical break with the past.

The environment at the National Security Agency is a subculture apart in a nation that values openness and has never been that comfortable with spying. People at the NSA snoop and keep secrets in the name of freedoms Americans hold dear.

To keep doing that job, the NSA must recruit smart young computer scientists, mathematicians and linguists to collect other nations' secrets in the information age. But there's a catch.

"We're going to put them through a process no other employer is going to put them through -- background investigation and that polygraph -- before they can even come work for us," said Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, the NSA's director.

The questions start simply enough, but they get more than a little personal, with queries about debt or possible crimes. While the NSA no longer asks about sexual orientation, the agency will inquire if a job applicant has a sexual partner who is not a U.S. citizen and if there is anything another nation's intelligence service could use as blackmail.

"This is a bill that our employees pay in order to come work here that most Americans are absolutely unaware of," Hayden said. "And so these Americans who are protecting American security and protecting American liberty come here and voluntarily allow some intrusiveness into their personal lives, into their personal liberty, so that we can have the confidence that we need to have in our overall enterprise that we are keeping America's secrets."

A lie-detector test is a standard part of the job application process with the NSA.

Polygraphs and precautions

Though NSA officials call the lie-detector test a useful tool, it is clearly not perfect. While he was spying for Russia, former CIA officer Aldrich Ames passed two polygraph tests. But the stakes can be high without such tests.

After all, the NSA and other U.S. intelligence agencies are still assessing the damage done by the alleged espionage of the FBI's Robert Hanssen. Hanssen was arrested February 18, 2001, and is accused of spying for the former Soviet Union and Russia since 1985.

U.S. officials say Hanssen, a 25-year FBI veteran who never underwent a polygraph test, provided information that betrayed U.S. agents and other U.S. operations, including a tunnel built underneath the Soviet Embassy in Washington for eavesdropping purposes.

Unlike the NSA and CIA, the FBI didn't have a policy requiring all employees to undergo polygraph tests after they are hired. Since Hanssen's arrest, the FBI has changed its policy and is starting to make all employees undergo random polygraph tests.

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

NSA officials also haven't forgotten Ronald Pelton, a former employee convicted in 1986 of spying for the Soviet Union. Pelton was a low-level communications specialist at the NSA for 14 years before leaving in 1980. He was arrested in 1985 and accused of selling secrets to the Soviets. He was convicted of two counts of espionage and one count of conspiracy and sentenced to three concurrent life sentences.

One of the secrets Pelton passed to the Soviets was information that compromised "Operation Ivy Bells," a top-secret operation in which a listening device was attached to Soviet undersea communication lines.

Asked if he was confident now that the NSA did not have a spy among its employees, Hayden said he was not worried.

The NSA's extensive background checks and security precautions haven't always worked. Former employee Ronald Pelton was convicted in 1986 of spying for the Soviet Union.

"Is it something I'm worried about? Is it on my front burner? The answer is no," he said. "I mean, would I ever say with absolute certitude that, 'No, we're safe?' Equally no. We work hard on this. It's an important part of our culture -- the way we live."

Secrecy -- and a dose of what many would call paranoia -- is indeed part of the culture at the NSA. The agency's budget and number of employees are classified. An old joke is that NSA actually stands for "No Such Agency."

Linguist Everette Jordan is one of the employees who listen to conversations obtained by the NSA. His job prohibits him from going home and discussing the day with his family.

"If you're going to be traveling, your family is going to know where you're going. But that's about it," he said. "What you're going to be doing, where you're going, that's not the issues, and the family, your children grow up knowing either Mom or Dad or both are working a job they really can't talk about. And so they're pretty accepting about those kinds of things."

And the price exacted on private lives doesn't end there. NSA employees are told to report close, ongoing relationships with non-U.S. citizens. They need permission to marry a non-American and stay at the NSA. If a close relative marries a person without U.S. citizenship, the agency must be notified. If an NSA employee takes an overseas vacation, the agency must be notified in advance.

"It's a sacrifice that doesn't show up in paychecks and doesn't show up in awards and doesn't frequently show up in the press," Hayden said. "But it's something that we expect all of our people to do."

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