[The documentary aired again twice this morning on the History Channel, and it's a fair bet it'll show again later this week. --Declan http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,41063,00.html History Looks at the NSA by Declan McCullagh (declan@wired.com) 2:00 a.m. Jan. 9, 2001 PST WASHINGTON -- As anyone who watched Enemy of the State knows, the National Security Agency is a rapacious beast with an appetite for data surpassed only by its disregard for Americans' privacy. Or is the opposite true, and the ex-No Such Agency staffed by ardent civil libertarians? To the NSA, of course, its devilish reputation is merely an unfortunate Hollywood fiction. Its director, Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, has taken every opportunity to say so, most recently on a History Channel documentary that aired for the first time Monday evening. "It's absolutely critical that (Americans) don't fear the power that we have," Hayden said on the show. He dismissed concerns about eavesdropping over-eagerness and all but said the NSA, far from being one of the most feared agencies, has become one of the most handicapped. One reason, long cited by agency officials: Encryption. The show's producers obligingly included stock footage of Saddam Hussein, saying that the dictator-for-life has been spotted chatting on a 900-channel encrypted cell phone. That's no surprise. The NSA, as Steven Levy documents in his new Crypto book (which the documentary overlooks), has spent the last 30 years trying to suppress data-scrambling technology through export regulations, court battles, and even personal threats. Instead of exploring that controversial and timely subject that's tied to the ongoing debate over privacy online, "America's Most Secret Agency" instead spends the bulk of an hour on a history of cryptography starting in World War II. Most of the documentary could have aired two decades ago, and no critics are interviewed. One of the few surprises in the otherwise bland show is the NSA's new raison d'etre -- infowar. [...]