The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and processing of information and data for foreign and domestic intelligence and counterintelligence purposes, specializing in a discipline known as signals intelligence (SIGINT). The NSA is also tasked with the protection of U.S. communications networks and information systems. The NSA relies on a variety of measures to accomplish its mission, the majority of which are clandestine. The existence of the NSA was not revealed until 1975. The NSA has roughly 32,000 employees.
Keith Brian Alexander is a retired four-star general of the United States Army, who served as director of the National Security Agency, chief of the Central Security Service, and commander of the United States Cyber Command. He previously served as Deputy Chief of Staff, G-2 (Intelligence), United States Army from 2003 to 2005. He assumed the positions of Director of the National Security Agency and Chief of the Central Security Service on August 1, 2005, and the additional duties as Commander United States Cyber Command on May 21, 2010.
John Bellinger Bellinger III is an American lawyer who served as the Legal Adviser for the U.S. Department of State and the National Security Council during the George W. Bush administration. He is now a partner at the Washington, D.C. law firm Arnold & Porter, and Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
James Andrew Baker is a former American government official at the Department of Justice who served as general counsel for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and later served as deputy general counsel at Twitter, Inc. before being fired by Elon Musk in December 2022.
Michael Vincent Hayden is a retired United States Air Force four-star general and former Director of the National Security Agency, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He also serves as a professor at the George Mason University - Schar School of Policy and Government. Hayden currently co-chairs the Bipartisan Policy Center's Electric Grid Cyber Security Initiative. In 2017, Hayden became a national security analyst for CNN.
Stewart Abercrombie Baker was the first Assistant Secretary for Policy at the United States Department of Homeland Security under the Presidency of George W. Bush.
James Robert Clapper Jr. is a retired lieutenant general in the United States Air Force and former Director of National Intelligence. Clapper has held several key positions within the United States Intelligence Community. He served as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) from 1992 until 1995. He was the first director of defense intelligence within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and simultaneously the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence. He served as the director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) from September 2001 until June 2006.
Jeremy B. Bash is an American lawyer. He was the chief of staff at the Central Intelligence Agency (2009–2011) and the U.S. Department of Defense (2011–2013) under President Barack Obama. As a senior advisor to Leon Panetta in both roles, Bash worked on a number of key initiatives, including the creation of a new defense strategy, formation of two defense budgets, counterterrorism operations, a new cyber strategy, and a range of sensitive intelligence operations.
Robert Hunter Biden is an American attorney and businessman. Biden has also been a hedge fund principal and a venture capital and private equity fund investor. He formerly worked as a banker, a lobbyist, and a legal representative for lobbying firms.
Peter P. Swire is the J.Z. Liang Chair in the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy in the College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Swire is also Professor of Law and Ethics in the Scheller College of Business and has an appointment by courtesy with the School of Public Policy. He is an internationally recognized expert in privacy law. Swire is also a senior fellow at the Future of Privacy Forum and has served on the National Academies of Science and Engineering Forum on Cyber Resilience. During the Clinton administration, he became the first person to hold the position of Chief Counselor for Privacy in the Office of Management and Budget. In this role, he coordinated administration policy on privacy and data protection, including interfacing with privacy officials in foreign countries. He may be best known for shaping the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Privacy Rule while serving as the Chief Counselor for Privacy. In November 2012 he was named as co-chair of the Tracking Protection Working Group of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), to attempt to mediate a global Do Not Track standard. In August 2013, President Obama named Swire as one of five members of the Director of National Intelligence Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies.
Matthew Glen Olsen is an American attorney who has served as the Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division since 2021. He is the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center.
Richard H. Ledgett Jr. is a former Deputy Director of the National Security Agency.
The Intercept is an online American nonprofit news organization that publishes articles and podcasts.
Rajesh "Raj" De is an American lawyer and former U.S. government official who later became the managing partner for the Washington, D.C., office of the law firm Mayer Brown. During the presidency of Barack Obama, he served in three significant government roles—as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy, as White House Staff Secretary, and finally as general counsel of the U.S. National Security Agency.
Rachel Lee Brand is an American lawyer, academic, and former government official. She served as the United States Associate Attorney General from May 22, 2017, until February 20, 2018, when she resigned to take a job as head of global corporate governance at Walmart. Brand was the first woman to serve as Associate Attorney General. She also served as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy in the George W. Bush administration and was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. Prior to becoming Associate Attorney General, Brand was an associate professor at Antonin Scalia Law School.
John Marshall Mitnick is an American lawyer who served as General Counsel for the United States Department of Homeland Security.
Kevin Stuart Bankston is an American activist and attorney, who specialized in the areas of free speech and privacy law. He is currently Privacy Policy Director at Facebook, where he leads policy work on AI and emerging technologies. He was formerly the director of the Open Technology Institute (OTI) at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C.
Michael Ellis is an American attorney, Republican political operative, and former government official. He is a visiting fellow for law and technology with The Heritage Foundation's Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. Ellis previously worked in multiple positions in the George W. Bush administration, for Republican congressman Devin Nunes and the Trump administration, being called a Donald Trump loyalist. He worked as a legal advisor to the National Security Council and was later appointed as Senior Director for Intelligence for the agency. In December 2021, he became the general counsel for the online video platform Rumble.
Anne Neuberger is an American national security official who serves as the deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging technology in the Biden administration. Prior to this role, she served for over a decade at the NSA, as director of cybersecurity, as assistant deputy director of operations, and as the agency's first chief risk officer. She joined the federal government as a White House fellow, working at the Pentagon, and subsequently served as deputy chief management officer of the Navy, before joining NSA. Before entering government service, Neuberger was senior vice president of operations at American Stock Transfer & Trust Company.
The Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy, and International Security is a think tank in Arlington, Virginia focused on the intelligence community including topics related to intelligence studies education, intelligence analysis techniques, and the operations of intelligence agencies, as well as public policy and international relations related to national security, international security, and foreign policy through shared experiences of senior intelligence service leaders, military officers, elected officials, journalists, academics, and other civilian scholars. It is housed within the Schar School of Policy and Government but also cooperates with the Antonin Scalia Law School’s National Security Institute in conducting research around legal issues pertaining to national security; both of which are affiliated with George Mason University.
