Spy agency launches recruiting campaign

[R. A. Hettinga]

<http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/8403065.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp>

Posted on Sat, Apr. 10, 2004

Spy agency launches recruiting campaign


Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The highly secretive National Security Agency is looking to
hire 7,500 workers over the next five years in the spy agency's largest
recruiting campaign since the 1980s.

A release posted on the agency's Web site said NSA plans to hire 1,500
workers by September, and another 1,500 in each of the next four years.
Those with specialties in foreign languages, especially Arabic and Chinese,
were encouraged to apply.

NSA said it was boosting its staff "to meet the increasing needs of the
ever-changing intelligence community."

The agency, an element of the Defense Department based at Fort Meade in
Maryland, conducts electronic wiretapping and signals gathering for foreign
intelligence purposes.

NSA and other intelligence agencies came under scrutiny after the Sept. 11
terror attacks for apparent failures and missteps that critics say might
have prevented officials from unraveling the hijacking plot.

A joint congressional inquiry report released last summer faulted the
intelligence agencies for being unprepared to handle the challenge it faced
in translating the volumes of foreign language counterterror intelligence
it collected.

Law enforcement officials have said that among the millions of intercepts
the NSA gathered on Sept. 10, 2001, were two Arabic-language messages that
warned of a major event the next day. The Arabic messages were not
translated until Sept. 12.

ON THE NET

National Security Agency: http://www.nsa.gov



 ) 2004 AP Wire and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
 http://www.mercurynews.com

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