Re: NSA museum now open, if you can find it

["Donald E. Eastlake 3rd (Beast)" <dee@skidrow.lkg.dec.com>]

From:  Hal <hfinney@shell.portal.com>
To:  cypherpunks@toad.com
>That museum sounds fascinating.  I got to visit the NSA's so-called
>"Friendship Annex" once on business.  This is not at Fort Meade itself,
>but a few miles away, to keep the impure and unclean away from the holy
>temple itself.

It's named after Friendship Airport which is not called
Baltimore-Washington Interntional Airport which these buildings are
very close to.

>Whoever named this place had quite a sense of irony; the surveillance
>cameras, briefcase searches, constant escorts, and armed guards did not
>project a particularly "friendly" image.  I was hoping to pick up some
>souvenirs, but when I asked about an employee gift shop they looked at me
>like I was crazy.  One thing that really caught my eye was a poster which
>was displayed widely, apparently a security-reminder-of-the-month thing.
>This was the holiday season, and the poster showed Santa stopped at the
>gate submitting his bag to be searched.  I'm surprised they didn't have
>the old boy being strip-searched.  Anyway, I begged and begged but nobody
>would let me have one.

I believe you can get on a mailing list for these posters free.  Try
calling NSA and asking for M56 or "Security Awareness".

>I really think the government is missing an opportunity by not selling
>NSA sweatshirts and such.  Recently the Los Angeles coroner's office
>started selling souvenirs and they were overwhelmed by the popular demand.
>Especially as cryptography becomes more popular, the NSA's sinister-but-
>glamorous image could be a marketer's dream.

The bureaucracy in the Federal Government makes this sort of thing
very messy.

>Hal

Donald