The NSA, in combination with corresponding agencies in the United Kingdom (GCHQ), Canada, Australia (the Defence Signals Directorate), and New Zealand, is believed to be responsible for, among other things, the operation of the Echelon system, whose capabilities are suspected to include the ability to monitor a large proportion of the civilian phone and data traffic transmitted around the world. The scale of these efforts is hard to determine from unclassified data, but one strong clue is the electricity usage of the NSA headquarters. The NSA's budget for electricity exceeds $21 million per year, making it the second largest electricity consumer in Maryland. Using conservative estimates, the NSA headquarters alone uses enough electricity to power four Earth Simulators (as of 20 Sept 2002, the most powerful supercomputer in existence).

Many people oppose the NSA, saying that the NSA infringes on Americans' right to privacy by spying on the United States' own citizens; others say that the NSA doesn't exist at all, noting that NSA could also stand for No Such Agency.


History
The predecessor of the NSA, the Armed Forces Security Agency (AFSA), was established within the Department of Defense, under the command of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on May 20, 1949. The AFSA was to be responsible for directing the communications and electronic intelligence activities of the military intelligence units - the Army Security Agency, Naval Security Group and the Air Force Security Service. However, the agency had little power and lacked a centralized coordination mechanism. After an extensive study authorized on December 13, 1951, the NSA was created in June 1952.

Headquarters for the NSA is Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, approximately ten miles northwest of Washington, DC. The NSA has its own exit off of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, labelled "NSA Employees Only."

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