It's important to remember that while the NSA is now a household name, it hasn't always been that name. I think until 1975 the existence of the agency was still

It's important to remember that while the NSA is now a household name, it hasn't always been that name. I think until 1975 the existence of the agency was still secret, and even after that it was mostly shrouded in secrecy until the 90s or so. The joke used to be that NSA stood for "No Such Agency".