DYNAMIC PAGE -- HIGHEST POSSIBLE CLASSIFICATION IS
TOP SECRET // SI / TK // REL TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL
(U//FOUO) Working at the Executive Office of the President
FROM:
Recent IADP graduate
Run Date: 09/26/2006
(U//FOUO) A recent Intelligence Analysis Development Program graduate describes her intern
tour in DC...
(C) I spent 7 months working alongside the NSA Liaison at the Executive Office of the President
in a building not far from the White House. This tour offered an eye-opening experience to see
what SIGINT provides to policy makers, and what NSA Offices of Primary Interest (OPI) gain
from feedback.
(U) A Liaison's Duties
(C) This downtown customer has one NSA and one CIA liaison assigned to retrieve items of
interest, arrange meetings with the individual customers, set up analyst-to-analyst exchanges,
and create Key Reads* for upcoming events. During this tour, it was essential that I acquire
knowledge of the customer and its various components so that I could retrieve all of the relevant
traffic and perform various other duties. Also, regular communication with Senior Executive
Account Managers (SEAM), the National Support Division Policy Pillar (S112), and OPIs was
important to facilitate requests and answer customers' questions.
(U) Matching the Customers' Long Hours
(U//FOUO) Unlike the early-in, early-out hours that most workers at NSAW keep, my customers'
days typically started with a morning staff meeting before 9 am and continued late into the
evening with various meetings around DC. The permanent NSA liaison and I worked with our
customers to ensure that they were kept up-to-date on their SIGINT reading, even if that
entailed us staying late. The long hours were very rewarding because our customers had
confidence in our ability to select valuable reporting for them to read and would make time in
their hectic day to meet with us. Often, on some of the busiest days for our customers, we had
great reporting tipped to us by the OPI and we were able to pull the customer aside before a key
meeting or phone call.
(C) Tear Lines Bring In New Readers
(C) Nearly half of my customers were cleared only to TOP SECRET and had only occasional
interaction with the permanent liaisons. When establishing my goals for my external tour, we
decided to conduct a study on the impact of trying to service as many customers as possible
with NSA's SECRET Tear Lines. This was of extreme importance, since there were changes in the
high levels of the organization at this time, and many of the key policy-makers had not received
their SCI clearance.
(S//SI) The OPIs did an excellent job in responding to requests to provide as much information
as possible in their Tear-Line reporting. During the 9-week study, we were able to turn 25
occasional customers into regular readers; 160 relevant Tear-Line reports were shown to
multiple customers. The customer was not the only one to gain from the increase in readership:
the OPIs back at NSA also gained insight from feedback on SIGINT product as well as readouts
from policy meetings.
(U) Summary
(U//FOUO) Overall, my external tour was very rewarding. I enjoyed working with key US
government policy makers and seeing firsthand how SIGINT can assist them. Please contact me
for further information or questions about this external tour at
or
* (U) Notes:
(U//FOUO) Key Reads = Customer-driven needs tied to a specific, near-term -- generally less
than 72 hours -- customer event, action, decision, or outcome for which the customer expects a
cryptologic product or service.
"(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