A tremendous amount of information is
in the public domain about the NSA and other intelligence agencies.
It is true that you will not be told the details of specific
programs, but you can get the general direction of most of what is
going on, and rarely be completely surprised when the truth comes
out. There are several reasons why this is
true, e.g. that the information is public, but the major ones are: policy debate inside the government,
competition for scarce resources, and various interested outside
organizations that maintain archives of information and analysis in
order to influence policy.
Here is a short list of my favorite
sources in the areas of intelligence and national defense policy.
There are many others.
1. George Washington University's
National Security Archive http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/
2. The Federation of American Sciences
(www.fas.org)
This pro-arms control group maintains
an excellent collection of background material on matters related to
defense and intelligence, in conjunction with www.globalsecurity.org.
3. The CIA Online Library https://www.cia.gov/library/index.html
4. The NSA Web Site www.nsa.gov
5. The Washington Post and the NY Times
Pretty much everything involving
defense and intelligence is discussed in the Washington Post and the
NY Times. The Post is better for details of Washington push and
shove, both are good for broad strategy and policy issues. Any
given article in the Washington Post is likely to have 100s if not
1000s of comments by crazed, angry partisans of one side of an issue
or another.
6. Congressional Research Service
The CRS is a branch of Congress that prepares reports on various topics for the House and Senate. I use the Open CRS archive and the FAS archive for the most part which can be found at:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/
http://www.opencrs.com
For example, here is a report on "Covert Action: Legislative Background and Possible Policy Questions".
https://opencrs.com/document/RL33715/2013-04-10/
Part 3:
http://globalwahrman.blogspot.com/2013/06/nsa-surveillance-secrets-3-general.html
The CRS is a branch of Congress that prepares reports on various topics for the House and Senate. I use the Open CRS archive and the FAS archive for the most part which can be found at:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/
http://www.opencrs.com
For example, here is a report on "Covert Action: Legislative Background and Possible Policy Questions".
https://opencrs.com/document/RL33715/2013-04-10/
Part 3:
http://globalwahrman.blogspot.com/2013/06/nsa-surveillance-secrets-3-general.html
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