Editing National Security Agency (section)

=== 1980s to 1990s ===
In 1986, the NSA intercepted the communications of the Libyan government during the immediate aftermath of the [[1986 Berlin discotheque bombing|Berlin discotheque bombing]]. The [[White House]] asserted that the NSA interception had provided "irrefutable" evidence that Libya was behind the bombing, which U.S. President [[Ronald Reagan]] cited as a justification for the [[1986 United States bombing of Libya]].<ref>{{cite news|last=Seymour M. Hersh|title=Target Qaddafi|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/02/22/magazine/target-qaddafi.html?pagewanted=all|work=[[The New York Times]]|access-date=January 12, 2014|date=February 22, 1987|archive-date=January 24, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140124070854/http://www.nytimes.com/1987/02/22/magazine/target-qaddafi.html?pagewanted=all|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=David Wise|title=Espionage Case Pits CIA Against News Media|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-05-18-op-21101-story.html|work=[[The Los Angeles Times]]|access-date=January 12, 2014|date=May 18, 1986|quote=the President took an unprecedented step in discussing the content of the Libyan cables. He was, by implication, revealing that the NSA had broken the Libyan code.|archive-date=January 13, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140113125722/http://articles.latimes.com/1986-05-18/opinion/op-21101_1_news-media/2|url-status=live}}</ref>

In 1999, a multi-year investigation by the European Parliament highlighted the NSA's role in economic espionage in a report entitled 'Development of Surveillance Technology and Risk of Abuse of Economic Information'.<ref>{{cite report |author=Peggy Becker |date=October 1999 |title=Development of Surveillance Technology and Risk of Abuse of Economic Information |url=http://www.europarl.europa.eu/stoa/cms/cache/offonce/home/publications/studies?page=12 |publisher=STOA, European Parliament |page=12 |access-date=November 3, 2013 |archive-date=January 25, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140125141702/http://www.europarl.europa.eu/stoa/cms/cache/offonce/home/publications/studies?page=12 |url-status=dead }}</ref> That year, the NSA founded the [[NSA Hall of Honor]], a memorial at the [[National Cryptologic Museum]] in Fort Meade, Maryland.<ref name=SunHall /> The memorial is a, "tribute to the pioneers and heroes who have made significant and long-lasting contributions to American cryptology".<ref name=SunHall /> NSA employees must be retired for more than fifteen years to qualify for the memorial.<ref name=SunHall>{{cite news|author=Staff|title=NSA honors 4 in the science of codes|url=https://www.baltimoresun.com/2003/06/13/nsa-honors-4-in-the-science-of-codes/|date=June 13, 2003|work=The Baltimore Sun|publisher=Tribune Company|access-date=June 11, 2013|archive-date=June 14, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130614020759/http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2003-06-13/news/0306130156_1_cryptology-hall-of-honor-pioneers|url-status=live}}</ref>

NSA's infrastructure deteriorated in the 1990s as defense budget cuts resulted in maintenance deferrals. On January 24, 2000, NSA headquarters suffered a total network outage for three days caused by an overloaded network. Incoming traffic was successfully stored on agency servers, but it could not be directed and processed. The agency carried out emergency repairs for $3&nbsp;million to get the system running again (some incoming traffic was also directed instead to Britain's [[GCHQ]] for the time being). Director [[Michael Hayden (general)|Michael Hayden]] called the outage a "wake-up call" for the need to invest in the agency's infrastructure.<ref>{{cite book|title=Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency|author=James Bamford|page=454 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VqY4Wr3T5K4C&pg=PA454|publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group|date=2007|isbn=978-0-307-42505-8}}</ref>

In the 1990s the defensive arm of the NSA—the Information Assurance Directorate (IAD)—started working more openly; the first public technical talk by an NSA scientist at a major cryptography conference was J. Solinas' presentation on efficient [[Elliptic-curve cryptography|Elliptic Curve Cryptography]] algorithms at Crypto 1997.<ref>{{cite book|last=Koblitz|first=Neal|title=Random Curves: Journeys of a Mathematician|publisher=Springer-Verlag|year=2008|page=312|isbn=9783540740773}}</ref> The IAD's cooperative approach to academia and industry culminated in its support for a [[Advanced Encryption Standard process|transparent process]] for replacing the outdated [[Data Encryption Standard]] (DES) by an [[Advanced Encryption Standard]] (AES). Cybersecurity policy expert [[Susan Landau]] attributes the NSA's harmonious collaboration with industry and academia in the selection of the AES in 2000—and the Agency's support for the choice of a strong encryption algorithm designed by Europeans rather than by Americans—to [[Brian Snow]], who was the Technical Director of IAD and represented the NSA as cochairman of the Technical Working Group for the AES competition, and Michael Jacobs, who headed IAD at the time.<ref>{{citation|last=Landau|first=Susan|title=NSA and Dual EC_DRBG: Déjà Vu All Over Again?|journal=The Mathematical Intelligencer|volume=37|issue=4|year=2015|pages=72–83|doi=10.1007/s00283-015-9543-z|s2cid=124392006}}</ref>{{rp|75}}

After the [[September 11 attacks|terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001]], the NSA believed that it had public support for a dramatic expansion of its surveillance activities.<ref name="teleg">{{cite news|last=Curtis|first=Sophie|title=Ex-NSA technical chief: How 9/11 created the surveillance state|work=[[The Daily Telegraph]]|date=13 November 2014|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet-security/11221287/Ex-NSA-technical-chief-How-911-created-the-surveillance-state.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220111/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet-security/11221287/Ex-NSA-technical-chief-How-911-created-the-surveillance-state.html |archive-date=2022-01-11 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live}}{{cbignore}}</ref> According to [[Neal Koblitz]] and [[Alfred Menezes]], the period when the NSA was a trusted partner with academia and industry in the development of cryptographic standards started to come to an end when, as part of the change in the NSA in the post-September 11 era, Snow was replaced as Technical Director, Jacobs retired, and IAD could no longer effectively oppose proposed actions by the offensive arm of the NSA.<ref>"In 2002 Brian Snow was moved from the technical directorship of IAD to a different position within the NSA that had high status but little influence, particularly about actions that were being proposed by SIGINT; Mike Jacobs retired from the NSA the same year." {{citation|last1=Koblitz|first1=Neal|last2=Menezes|first2=Alfred J.|title=A riddle wrapped in an enigma|journal=IEEE Security & Privacy|volume=14|issue=6|year=2016|pages=34–42|doi=10.1109/MSP.2016.120|s2cid=2310733}} Footnote 9 in the full version, see {{cite web|title=A riddle wrapped in an enigma|url=https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1018.pdf|access-date=12 April 2018|archive-date=3 December 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171203040151/https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1018.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>