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(U//FOUO)
is the DA Technical Director
FROM:
Data Acquisition Technical Director
Run Date: 11/03/2003
(U//FOUO) I am very pleased to have been given the opportunity to serve as the Data
Acquisition Technical Director and as Chief of the Technical Advocate Office. I look forward to
meeting the challenges of the job. One of the benefits of this position is that within DA there are
an extraordinarily large percentage of highly technical people. Even
the Deputy
Director for Data Acquisition was initially elevated as a DISL. One of my challenges will be to
effectively engage the members of the DA technical community and to be an advocate on their
behalf.
(S//SI) As the DA Technical Director I am responsible for working as a member of both the DA
and SID leadership teams and to assure that technical issues are appropriately represented and
incorporated into strategic planning and tactical resource decisions. In order to accomplish, this I
spend a significant amount of time each week with the members of the SID Technical Leadership
Team. The team is comprised of the Technical Directors from CRD , A&P; , DA , SIGDEV , SID
Systems Engineering and the SID Chief Technology Officer . The Chief, SID/RAD Bridge and the
ITIS TD often attend as well. This group usually meets three times each week for one or two
hour sessions to discuss topics ranging from prioritizing the research agenda that SID will send
to RAD to working with the system engineers who are designing the common data model to
assure that it will fit all of SID's needs. I strongly encourage anyone who feels they have SIDlevel technical issues to contact us.
(S//SI) One focus of this group is to continue the development and rollout of the Layered Zone
Model (LZM). The LZM is a functional description of how the SIGINT system will operate in the
future. It provides strategic direction for developing critical capabilities needed for
transformation, and thus will drive programmatics and technological and analytical evolution.
The LZM is not intended to replace the SIGINT architecture, but to provide guidance on critical
directions that the SIGINT system must take. It advocates for three distinct business lines:
Sustaining Production, Tip-offs and Alerts, and SIGINT Development (SIGDEV) - major SIGINT
focus areas in the future. It also identifies critical functionality in the following areas: making
the SIGINT system more transparent to customers, to the extent that law and policy will allow,
and creating an Internet-like analytic environment which will take full advantage of the rich
collection access available now and in the future. (See the LZM diagram ).
(U//FOUO) The Technical Advocate Office (S3T) is comprised of the following elements:
(U//FOUO) Cryptologic Mathematician Program (CMP) and the Cryptanalysis Intern Program :
The CMP program and the CA intern program recruit, hire, diversify and train the next
generation of cryptomathematicians and cryptanalysts.
(U//FOUO) Data Acquisition Fellows Program : The Fellows program is typically a three year
program intended to offer technical leadership opportunities to highly motivated mid-career
technologists. The tours are usually a year or so in duration.
(S//SI) Target Technology Trends and Analysis Center (T3C): The T3C, part of the SIGDEV
community, is responsible for monitoring developments in telecommunications technology,
anticipating how targets of interest will use this technology, and predicting the technology's
impact on the Signals Intelligence Directorate's ability to monitor targets. The T3C provides key
inputs to anticipatory investment strategies for research, development and analysis to prepare
for the future.
(U//FOUO) Research POD Program : The pod program, established in 1997, accepts proposals
from anyone who believes that the proposed area of study is a topic to which the Agency should
devote resources. All pod proposals are presented to a research committee of senior technical
experts from throughout the Agency. Pod participants are also drawn from throughout the
Agency, Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) and our second party partners. There have been a
total of 35 pods and 4 are currently active.
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid comms)."
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DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108