DYNAMIC PAGE -- HIGHEST POSSIBLE CLASSIFICATION IS
TOP SECRET // SI / TK // REL TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL
(U) What We're Hearing from Customers
FROM:
Customer Engagement Program Manager (S11)
Run Date: 11/08/2005
(U//FOUO) How much do you know about what SIGINT Customer Account Managers do? Have
you ever wished you could look over their shoulders and find out what is going on with a
particular customer? Account Managers and others have been recording what they know about
SIGINT customers in a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) database**. The information
in this system will gradually be made available to everyone on NSAnet, beginning with customer
contacts and visit information in December 2005. In the meantime, here is a sample of what the
Account Managers have been learning. The information below was taken from database entries
for the month of September 2005.
(TS//SI) Clients understandably tend to get upset when their favorite sources dry up,
and they often turn to their Account Managers for help. White House customers were concerned
in September about the closure of a unique source of Bosnian communications that enable them
to know whether certain Bosnian officials are "telling us the truth"; this was deemed "critical" to
U.S. policymaking. White House Account Manager
is helping customers there
understand that the loss of the source is beyond NSA's control and explore other options for
getting coverage of that target.
(TS//SI) In a similar vein, the Air Force Space Command was concerned about
, which is perceived as less robust than in the past due to
Air Force Account Manager
and the rest of
the Customer Relations team will work with appropriate NSA elements to address these
concerns.
(TS) Sometimes in the course of normal interaction, we discover opportunities for
improving our service to clients. CIA/DI Account Manager
, responding recently to
an inquiry from a CIA analyst, found a mismatch between the client's expectations for how NSA
would respond to a Research Information Need (RIN)--namely, that we would search
unpublished SIGINT in preparing the response--and NSA's actual practice in responding to the
RIN. This case has shed light on the need to clarify expectations for RINs from both the client
and SIGINT provider perspectives.
(TS) In another case, while providing training on WRANGLER and GALELITE, we recently
discovered that the Joint Warfare Analysis Center (JWAC) was using a version of the GALELITE
software, provided by the NRO, that did not have some of the enhancements of the current NSA
version. JWAC Account Manager
worked with the software administrators to
rectify that situation and get their software updated.
(TS//SI) Of course, Account Managers don't just get complaints or find things wrong with NSA's
services. Account Manager
was happy to report recently that a senior U.S.
Government official took special interest in the terrorist threat information uncovered by
computer forensics after the arrest of Al-Quaida operative "Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani" in Pakistan.
And CENTCOM Account Manager
has had numerous opportunities to foster
improvements to our service to that important customer, including:
having a SIGINT outage postponed during the Afghan elections,
pushing NSA's policy envelope by facilitating the response to a request to perform mobile
GSM collection with a Third Party;
ensuring that Department of Homeland Security personnel entering Iraq would have a
way to receive the force protection SIGINT they needed, and
encouraging CENTCOM's use of SIGINT on Demand.
(U//FOUO) For a listing of Account Managers with their contact information, please visit the
national support contact list . To find out more about the AWAKECHANT CRM system from which
the above information was gleaned, you can "go AWAKECHANT" in your browser. Finally, if you
have feedback on this article, please contact
S11,
.
**(U//FOUO) See a related article about CRM: "Getting a Complete Picture of Our SIGINT
Clients"
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid_comms)."
DYNAMIC PAGE -- HIGHEST POSSIBLE CLASSIFICATION IS
TOP SECRET // SI / TK // REL TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL
DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108