I Spy (with the NSA) Trivia Quiz

Answer: Cipher Bureau

The Cipher Bureau was established in 1917 during World War I. Its main goal was to decipher German code words via telegraphs. The Cipher Bureau only had three permanent employees when it opened, one of which was the director Herbert Yardley. After the war, the Cipher Bureau was renamed the Code Compilation Company but continued doing the same kind of work.

Answer: Defending Our Nation, Securing The Future

The agency's motto "Defending Our Nation, Securing The Future" refers to the job the NSA does. The NSA is generally considered to be the U.S.' foremost spying agency. Officially, what the NSA does is called "global monitoring". That means the agency collects and shares intelligence data from around the world to defend the nation from terrorist and other threats.

The data are typically collected by means of surveillance.

Answer: Harry Truman

The NSA was established in 1952, although it was a secret at the time because Truman used a classified memo to create it. Because it was a secret (albeit a somewhat poorly kept one), the NSA was nicknamed No Such Agency. The NSA became widely known publicly in the 1960s because it had too many employees to effectively be kept covert.

The agency was formed as a response to the failure of one of the NSA's predecessors, the Armed Forces Security Agency. The AFSA was ineffective in sharing the intelligence information it collected with other government agencies

Answer: Those who opposed the Vietnam War

Operation MINARET was an extremely controversial program during which the NSA spied on public figures who spoke out against the Vietnam War. Among the most prominent targets was Martin Luther King Jr. and U.S. Senator Frank Church. Church would later chair a Senate committee looking into the program. A number of celebrities were also targeted including Muhammad Ali and Jane Fonda, both of whom were outspoken critics of the Vietnam War.

MINARET was abandoned because the NSA workers became weary of spying on U.S. citizens without warrants and NSA officials came to believe the operation was illegal.

Answer: Libya

The NSA had spied on the Libyan Government in 1986 and determined that that country had been responsible for the bombing of the La Belle discotheque that killed three people including two U.S. soldiers. President Reagan had used the NSA's findings as a reason to bomb Libya.

The U.S. strikes against Libya were condemned at the time because most of the world saw it as an attempt to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi.

Answer: None. A federal court ruled the ACLU did not have standing to sue.

The case was ACLU vs. NSA. The ACLU on behalf of its clients sued the NSA for allegedly spying and collecting data on the five plaintiffs named. The ACLU argued that this collection and surveillance violated the Fourth Amendment. The ACLU's clients alleged they were unlawfully targets of the NSA's Terrorist Surveillance Program or TSP and placed on the "no fly" and "terrorist watch" lists.

The ACLU won in the lower court but lost in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. That court said the ACLU and its clients did not have standing to sue because they could not prove that the plaintiffs were being monitored by the NSA.

The ACLU's lawyers noted that since the TSP and the "no fly" list were classified and secret, no one could ever prove they were unlawful victims, basically giving the government free reign to spy on U.S. citizens.

Answer: NSA patents are only publically revealed if an identical patent is filed by someone else

The NSA can file patents requests and those requests and issued patents will remain under a gag under until and unless someone else files for a patent that is identical to one the NSA has. In that case, the gag order is removed and the patent is made public. That is because the new patent filer has a right to know why his or her patent was denied.

Answer: Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden had leaked millions of documents and files regarding the NSA's mass surveillance program. Former NSA Director Keith Alexander claimed that is actually impossible to know how much information Snowden might have copied or stolen since the NSA was unaware of how much information it might actually have had.

Snowden's leaks revealed that the NSA's spying programs were far more extensive than anyone originally imagined. He also revealed that the U.S. spied on world leaders, including its allies, like German Chancellor Angela Merkel who had her cell phone tapped. Snowden spoke at length to a number of journalists, including Glenn Greenwald, about the leaks. Leaks that may have come from Snowden were also published in various newspapers like "The New York Times" and WikiLeaks, though it is not always clear what if anything came from Snowden. Snowden revealed that the NSA allegedly has tracked over a billion people worldwide.

Answer: An NSA operation that collects data from major internet companies and websites

The PRISM program is a tool that by which the NSA monitors and collects internet communications. It watches over major websites like Google to monitor potential communications between terrorists. Its main focus is to prevent cyber attacks and to prevent terror attacks by finding out about them via the communications.

Answer: A woman who was shot and killed by an NSA agent

On March 30, 2015, Mya Hall had crashed into the vehicle of an NSA agent outside the Fort Meade Headquarters, driving a stolen SVU. What exactly transpired next is not clear, but Hall was shot dead and her passenger was injured. The NSA claimed the women were trying to enter the headquarters but were denied and continued to try and enter.

It was later claimed (via an anonymous source) that the women did not try to enter to the building and may not have even known it was the NSA headquarters. Police believed the women got lost after stealing the car and may have been under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

The incident caused controversy as many people viewed the NSA as overreacting and needlessly killing a woman who was not armed or perceived to be dangerous. Others said it exposed the NSA as inept to handle dire situations should an actual threat approach the headquarters.