The Government Electronic Surveillance Agencies

Modified 6 November 2008

"If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged."
  — Cardinal Richelieu

The walls have ears, behave accordingly. Here are some organizations that take information security and/or communications security very seriously indeed, some of which also expend some effort in breaking that of other peoples.

Depending on who and where you are, the below list will likely contain some mix of good guys and bad guys.

• Australia
  • DSD — Defence Signals Directorate, Information Security Branch. http://www.dsd.gov.au
  • ASIS — Australian Secret Intelligence Service. http://www.asis.gov.au/
• Canada
  • CSE — Communications Security Establishment.
    • http://www.cse.dnd.ca/
    • http://www.cse-cst.gc.ca/
  • CSIS — Canadian Security Intelligence Service http://www.csis-scrs.gc.ca/
  • Canadian Forces School of Intelligence http://www.cfsis.brdn.dnd.ca/
• France — Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (Directorate-General for External Security) — http://www.defense.gouv.fr/dgse
• Germany — Bundesamt fur Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik, (Federal Office for Information Security, or BSI), is Germany's equivalent of the NSA: http://www.bsi.bund.de/english/publications/index.htm
• INTERPOL — International Criminal Police Organization.
  • http://www.interpol.int/
  • http://www.interpol.com/
• Japan — Bōeishōjōhohonbu (Defense Intelligence Headquarters) — http://www.mod.go.jp/dih/
• New Zealand — Government Communications Security Bureau: http://www.gcsb.govt.nz/
• Russia
  • ФСБ (FSB) — Федералная Служба Безопасности (Federal'naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti, or Federal Department of Security). The new name for Komityet Gosudarstvyenoy Bezopasnosti, the Committee for State Security, or the KGB. http://www.fsb.ru
• Serbia — Bezbednosno-Informativna Agencija (Security Information Agency) — http://www.bia.gov.rs/
• South Korea — National Intelligence Service
  • http://www.nis.go.kr/index.shtml
  • http://www.nis.go.kr/eng/index.shtml
• Spain — Centro Nacional de Inteligencia — http://www.cni.es/
• Sweden — Försvarets Radioanstalt (FRA) or Swedish National Defence Radio Establishment —
  • http://www.fra.se/
  • http://www.fra.se/english.html
• Turkey
  • Ulusal Elektronik ve Kriptoloji Araştırma Enstitüsü, (National Research Institute of Electronics and Cryptology) — http://www.uekae.tubitak.gov.tr/
  • Milli Istihbarat Teşkilati (National Intelligence Organization) — http://www.mit.gov.tr/
• Ukraine
  • Sluzhba Bespeky Ukrayiny (SBU) (Security Service of Ukraine) — http://www.sbu.gov.ua/
• United Kingdom
  • GCHQ — Government Communications Headquarters — the main comsec/sigint agency in the U.K.
    • GCHQ — http://www.gchq.gov.uk/
    • Her Majesty's Government Communications Centre — http://www.hmgcc.gov.uk/
    • Communications-Electronics Security Group (CESG) — http://www.cesg.gov.uk/
  • MI6 — The Secret Intelligence Service. http://www.sis.gov.uk/
  • MI5 — The Security Service. http://www.mi5.gov.uk/.
• United States of America — Note that NSA is the main comsec/sigint agency in the U.S., although NRO operates satellites for NSA, and DIA runs some of the other data-gathering operations.
  • CIA — Central Intelligence Agency. http://www.cia.gov/
  • DIA — Defense Intelligence Agency. http://www.dia.mil/
  • FBI — Federal Bureau of Investigation. http://www.fbi.gov/
  • NRO — National Reconnaisance Office http://www.nro.gov/
  • NGA — National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency http://www.nga.mil/
    Formed out of (among other things) NIMA — National Imagery and Mapping Agency, the home of Admiral James Sandecker. Or so I always claim.
    And confusingly overlapping with NRO — National Reconnaissance Office, http://www.nro.gov/
  • NSA — National Security Agency. http://www.nsa.gov/. There has been a lot of recent controversy over the NSA's listening to Europe, which mostly proves that the Europeans haven't been paying attention. For details:
    • http://www.europarl.europa.eu/dg4/stoa/en/publi/166499/execsum.htm
    • http://www.fas.org/irp/program/process/echelon.htm
    • http://www.fas.org/irp/program/process/rapport_echelon_en.pdf
    • http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/systems/echelon.htm

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