Documents / Document
This is an affidavit by Eugene F. Yeates, Chief of the National Security Agency's Office of Policy, filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia in Citizens Against Unidentified Flying Objects Secrecy v. NSA, Civil Action No. 80-1562, and sworn in September 1980. It traces the plaintiff's FOIA requests for NSA's UFO records and the CIA referrals of NSA documents. Yeates says the COMINT reports stay classified in full, and he describes four non-COMINT records that were released in part or found not responsive.
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foreign officials that such .interception of radio communica.~~.~-~;rt~. I_;_..· ;_:_·._·.:····.·.1,._::._;._)
is a prima~y mission of the NSA. Foreign officials may be ·:,_;:~H~.I :fi~ _
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expected to know, ~lso, that NSA cannot possibly intercept ev~~ .. ~f ·;,:' &"~ ·: .
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a significant percentage of all such communications, especially_'~-:~:~
taking account of the fact that NSA' s activities involve : ."..<~:~~~·::~; :\~
worldwide communications, not solely those having a United .-.:::;)). ,'J~
States terminal. The number is simply too vast to be handled ··;;S :·~j!
with any reasonable amount of personnel and equipment. .. ···: ·" ~-.~~.;:~ -·,~~
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the cost and effort of such interception would be dispropor.tic)n!.:.:? ::'.:~
ate ,t:2~he ,:::::~i::n:: :::~: ::r:::n r:::::::gence. target~~-'~~ ipresumably know well --- NSA must focus its interception ac.tivi-.'C ·':"-::~
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.ties on those particular communications lines,- channels, links ·.J~' _;l-1
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or systems which yield the highest proportion of useful foreigri'·!~ ~-:~t
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intelligence information. What foreign government official~ }:.o~.:..:·.:,{~
not know, however, is which of the vast numbe~ of radio commun.~:~·1 ·,~:;:
cations NSA attempts to intercept, which are intercepted, and, ···
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l! of those that are intercepted, which yield. to NSA processing·:·.<~·;. )
•1 methods and techniques. It is the protection of this critical .. ~: .:.;.:.•
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;,fl •information that is at the heart of the instant ~ase •. ··:.:.)J;~;{~:l1
Ii 13. The continued efficacy of NSA's vital intelligence -~·::.1~· ::.-..·.......
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activities requires that the lines, channels, links and systems '." ~'i·?
II actually monitored remain ~~iden.ti.fied. if a foreign go~:~·~i;~i~ tl
\! obtains suffiCie.nt reason to suspect that NSA is able to. <~'.S~~it~i: :~~
intercept and process that government's radio communications,·'·'.:~~· · ~ ..-
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that ·government would be expected to take immediate steps to .~)."'-7.' ·, .....~
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defeat that capability. This can be accomplished in a number_ f:; ~~.:,:!
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of ways. A foreign government might shift to communications .:·:.;rr. •:;.:
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Document, from the nsa collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 14 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.