National Security Agency

For 11 years, prosecutors say, William Turley and two of his children used their Maryland manufacturing business to brazenly bill nearly $1.5 million in overcharges to a single customer: the National Security Agency. The scam, described in a federal indictment, seems a foolish venture; after all, the NSA is the intelligence agency that helped find Osama bin Laden. Even more surprising — the scam is not unique. The Turleys, who all pleaded not guilty this month in Baltimore's U.S. District Court, are just the latest in a string of people prosecuted by the Maryland U.S. attorney's office for similar crimes involving non-classified work for the NSA, records show.

A new computing facility at the National Security Agency will help the country better defend against cyber attacks , agency officials and members of Congress said Monday. The High Performance Computing Center-2 will assist in "front-line defense against immediate threats" in cyberspace, Gen. Keith B. Alexander, the director of the National Security Agency and head of U.S. Cyber Command, said during a groundbreaking ceremony Monday at Fort Meade. The 600,000-square-foot facility, similar in function to an existing computer center, is scheduled to open in 2016.

"Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency -- From the Cold War Through the Dawn of a New Century," by James Bamford. Doubleday. 720 pages. $29.95. Like a mountaineer making a second assault on Everest, James Bamford has returned to the largest and most secret of U.S. intelligence agencies and brought back a book worthy of the scale, importance and mystery of its subject. "Body of Secrets" is a magnificent achievement and a compelling read for anyone interested in espionage, technology and the Cold War. It adds some astonishing footnotes to 20th century history and vividly portrays both the awesome power and growing troubles of the National Security Agency's army of eavesdroppers.

If there are nearly 20,000 cyber security jobs are available in the state of Maryland, why hasn't it been shouted from the roof tops ("Cyber help wanted," Feb. 27)? Most employment news we hear now is fairly dismal. With this many high-paying positions needing to be filled, the school system must take more notice. Baltimore's Digital Harbor High School, a marvelous place dedicated to technology and located right in Federal Hill, is one place to start. Recruiters from the National Security Agency, U.S. Cyber Command and other government and private agencies should stop by and encourage students to enroll in computer security programs and pursue degrees in the field.

Industry and academia have cut back on hiring. But the secretive National Security Agency needs more than a few good mathematicians and has sacrificed some of its cherished anonymity to recruit them.At a time when the NSA plans to trim its overall work force by about 15 percent, the high-technology spy agency near Fort Meade is aggressively recruiting people with degrees in mathematics.The agency, which refuses to cite numbers, already claims to be the largest employer of mathematicians in the United States.

National Security Agency's Cryptologic Museum Where: There is no address. Really. But the NSA Web site does provide directions: From Baltimore, take 295 South or Interstate 95 South to Route 32 East toward Fort Meade. Move to left lane and exit onto Canine Road. Turn left at the light onto Colony Seven Road. Follow past the aircraft and Shell station into the museum parking lot. For more directions and a map, visit the Web site (see below). When: 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Mondays-Fridays; 10 a.m.-2 p.m. every first and third Saturday.

President Clinton has nominated Air Force Maj. Gen. Michael Hayden as the director of the Fort Meade-based National Security Agency, the Pentagon announced yesterday.Hayden is a 32-year Air Force veteran and a longtime intelligence officer. He is stationed in Korea as deputy chief of staff for the United Nations Command, where he has led negotiations between North and South Korean delegations.Hayden, 52, will replace Lt. Gen. Kenneth Minihan, who will end his three-year tour at the agency March 15.Hayden's nomination to the NSA must first be confirmed by the full Senate.

Milton H. Gable, a retired plumber who had worked at the National Security Agency, died Tuesday of colon cancer at Northwest Hospital Center. He was 85 and a longtime Lansdowne resident. Mr. Gable was born on his family's Gable Avenue farm in Southwest Baltimore. After the death of his mother when he was 8 years old, he and a sister were placed in the General German Orphan Home in Catonsville. "His father, who had been born in 1865, was elderly and could only care for the older children," said his son, Charles M. Gable of Ellicott City.

Making room for a wave of new hires, the National Security Agency has leased a former Sony computer chip plant in San Antonio from a Maryland real estate company, the agency said yesterday. Some Maryland employees will be affected by the expansion in Texas, the NSA said, because a core group of experienced analysts at the agency's Fort Meade headquarters will be transferred to train the new ones in San Antonio. Employees will not be moved over their objections or laid off as a result, officials says.

IT IS JAN. 17, 2001, the 10th anniversary of the U.S. bombing campaign against Baghdad, Iraq.Suddenly, an hour after the opening bell, the computers at the New York Stock Exchange flicker off. A jumbo jet landing at Chicago's O'Hare airport crashes when a bogus tower message tells it to land on a crowded runway. On board the USS Eisenhower in the Persian Gulf, angry sailors demand to know why their bank accounts back home have been emptied.For the first time in the history of warfare, the American mainland has been invaded - but not by troops.

Anne Arundel Workforce Development Corporation and Howard County Workforce Development are sponsoring a Fort Meade Town Hall Thursday, Oct. 25, from 7 to 8:30 p.m., at Arundel High School, 1001 Annapolis Road, in Gambrills. The public can learn from Fort Meade employers about their hiring needs. The following organizations are scheduled to be in attendance: Fort Meade Civilian Personnel Advisory Center, Defense Information Systems Agency, Defense Media Activity, the National Security Agency and the Fort Meade Kimbrough Ambulatory Care Center.

A federal judge sentenced father and son William and Donald Turley on Friday to 18 months in prison for using the family business to cheat the National Security Agency out of nearly $1.5 million, the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office announced. William Turley, 71, is from Annapolis; Donald Turley, 54, is from Owings, in Calvert County. Together they ran the Bechdon Co., located in Upper Marlboro, which made metal and plastic parts for the NSA. The men purposely overbilled the agency for hours that were never worked for more than a decade, prosecutors said.

Defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corp. warned state regulators Friday that it will be laying off 224 employees across the country, including dozens based at Fort Meade, after losing a contract to provide security for a government agency. But a spokesman for Northrop Grumman said the company expects the employees will continue to do the same work for the incoming contractor. The switchover is expected in April. "The jobs aren't going away," said David Apt, the spokesman. The contract is for providing access-control services to the National Security Agency in multiple states, ensuring that the people driving onto NSA property and going into its buildings are supposed to be there.

Jean W. South, a retired National Security Agency analyst and school bus driver, died of liver failure Monday at University of Maryland Medical Center. The Annapolis resident was 69. Born Jean Wisniewski in Baltimore and raised on Andre Street in Locust Point, she was a 1960 Seton High School graduate. She earned a degree at Anne Arundel Community College and attended the University of Maryland Baltimore County. She met her future husband, Larry South, a defense contractor, while on a skiing trip in Vermont.

Analysts with the National Security Agency see the threats coming at corporate America: viruses, worms and other malware targeting the computer networks that serve the nation's banks, utilities and businesses. But the 64-year-old law that established the modern U.S. intelligence community prevents them from sharing the classified details with the private businesses in the cross hairs. "I'm really concerned that we will have some type of serious attack within the year," said Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, who receives security briefings as the top-ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

It was shocking to see that the National Security Agency is still persecuting Thomas Drake, the whistleblower who exposed a wasteful computer system and then was prosecuted ("NSA whistle-blowers want seized computers returned," Nov. 18). He and his colleagues tried to do the right thing for the taxpayers. As often happens to whistleblowers, Mr. Drake was fired, lost his pensions, and was consumed financially by a bogus legal case. This was a warning to those considering blowing the whistle.

The notoriously secretive National Security Agency threw - well, cracked - open its doors yesterday for a momentous, first-ever event. A press conference. It's a sign of further change at the code-making and breaking institution at Fort Meade in Anne Arundel County that it would organize such an event - after all, even its annual budget is classified. For the past few years the agency has been offering peeks at some of the tightly held information about itself and its significant impact on the local economy.

A 46-year-old Columbia woman was sentenced to 10 months of home detention and four additional years of probation Friday for inflating the hours she worked as a contractor to overbill the National Security Agency by nearly $109,000, the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office announced. Ann Warwick worked for Business Consulting Technology LLC, a subcontractor providing intelligence analyst services for the NSA, from August 2009 to July 2010, when she's accused of adding 836 hours to her time sheets, at a rate of more than $100 per hour.

Joseph Hooper Mettle Jr., a retired communications system engineer who had worked for the National Security Agency for more than three decades, died July 30 of liver cancer at his Eldersburg home. He was 77. The son of a government worker and a homemaker, Mr. Mettle was born in Baltimore and raised on Reisterstown Road in Northwest Baltimore. He attended Mount St. Joseph High School in Irvington, and after graduating from Forest Park High School in 1952, enlisted in the Marine Corps.