The NSA Has a Podcast—Here's How to Decode It

My first communicative for WIRED—yep, 31 years ago—looked astatine a radical of “crypto rebels” who were trying to pry beardown encryption exertion from the government-classified satellite and nonstop it into the mainstream. Naturally I attempted to talk to idiosyncratic astatine the National Security Agency for remark and ideally get a model into its thinking. Unsurprisingly, that was a no-go, due to the fact that the NSA was celebrated for its reticence. Eventually we agreed that I could fax (!) a database of questions. In instrumentality I got an unsigned effect successful unhelpful bureaucratese that didn’t code my queries. Even that represented a loosening of what erstwhile was full blackout connected thing having to bash with this ultra-secretive quality agency. For decades aft its post–World War II founding, the authorities revealed nothing, not adjacent the name, of this bureau and its activities. Those successful the cognize referred to it arsenic “No Such Agency.”

In caller years, the wide adoption of encryption exertion and the captious request for cybersecurity has led to much openness. Its directors began to talk successful public; successful 2012, NSA manager Keith Alexander really keynoted Defcon. I’d spent the full 1990s lobbying to sojourn the bureau for my publication Crypto; successful 2013, I yet crossed the threshold of its iconic Fort Meade Headquarters for an on-the-record conversation with officials, including Alexander. NSA present has societal media accounts connected Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. And there is simply a form connected the bureau website for podcasters to petition impermanent appearances by an existent NSA-ite.

So it shouldn’t beryllium a full daze that NSA is present doing its ain podcast. You don’t request to beryllium an quality bureau to cognize that pods are a unsocial mode to archer stories and clasp people’s attention. The archetypal 2 episodes of the seven-part play dropped this week. It’s called No Such Podcast, earning immoderate self-irony points from the get-go.

In keeping with the openness vibe, the NSA granted maine an interrogation with an authoritative successful complaint of the project—one of the de facto podcast producers, a rubric that seemingly is inactive not an authoritative NSA occupation posting. Since NSA inactive gotta NSA, I can’t usage this person’s name. But my root did constituent retired that successful the podcast itself, some the hosts and the guests—who are past and contiguous bureau officials—speak nether their existent identities. We conducted the interrogation via Microsoft Teams; my spokesperson and 1 of the hosts were successful a country with an awesome inheritance of the authoritative seals of the NSA, the US Central Command, and the United States Cyber Command. I did my extremity from a World Trade Center league room, praying my Wi-Fi wouldn’t chopped out.

Why an NSA podcast? The spokesperson explains that the NSA has the world’s champion cryptologists and cryptanalysts, each of whom enactment successful silence, and the bureau wanted to speech astir their captious and astonishing work. “The podcast,” the spokesperson says, “is a mean that allows for bully storytelling and speech that is chiseled from things we already prosecute in. It provides a antithetic level of connection.” I aboriginal received a connection from Sara Siegle, the NSA’s caput of strategical communications, echoing that point: “NSA believes successful showcasing the incredible, dedicated enactment of our diverse, adept workforce. No Such Podcast extends our existing efforts into a caller and increasing medium.” Got it.

I suggest immoderate secondary motivations. Some of the NSA’s societal media posts solicit workers, and this podcast seems likewise designed to entreaty to STEM graduates who mightiness spot patriotism implicit moving for Google oregon a startup. My root acknowledged that this was the case. “Recruitment is not the fig 1 extremity of the podcast, but we are surely hoping that by showcasing the enactment we bash here, and the existent radical connected the amusement who enactment here, listeners mightiness say, ‘Oh, that sounds similar a truly chill job—and that idiosyncratic seems beauteous normal, right?’”

The NSA besides seemingly sees the podcast arsenic a accidental to reply immoderate critics who complaint that the bureau is simply a Big Brother-ish snooping cognition that threatens our privacy. In the precise archetypal episode, impermanent talker Natalie Laing, the NSA’s manager of operations, speaks astatine magnitude astir however the NSA limits itself to accusation applicable to nationalist information and akin imperatives. “Compliance is our fig 1 focus,” she says. By hitting this enactment truthful hard that my Apple Watch sent maine a measurement alert, the NSA seems to beryllium utilizing the podcast format to code suspicions that it violates privacy—especially aft the shocking revelations from Edward Snowden astir however overmuch worldly the NSA does grab. (I americium told Snowden’s sanction is not uttered successful the full NSA podcast series—no specified person?)