# NSA

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "NSA," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/nsa/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*Kiriakou on the agency whose Utah facility boasts room to store every American's calls, texts and emails for the next 500 years.*

The **National Security Agency** is a US signals-intelligence agency that John Kiriakou discusses both as part of the broader US intelligence community and as a subject of criticism in its own right. Kiriakou says the NSA was secret "into the late '70s," but that there are no longer any truly secret intelligence agencies, the NSA included. [1]

Kiriakou says a massive NSA facility built in the Utah desert has bragged of having enough storage capacity to hold every American's phone calls, text messages, emails, and voicemails for the next 500 years. [2][3] He says billions of dollars are spent spying on Americans by the NSA, CIA, and FBI alike, and that nothing about Americans' communications is truly secret from these agencies. [4]

On foreign collection his objection is narrower than his objection to domestic collection, and he grounds the distinction in public opinion rather than in law. The interception of [Angela Merkel](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/angela-merkel)'s mobile phone was, he says, big news, *"she was one of our closest allies"*, and [Hillary Clinton](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/hillary-clinton) went to Germany to apologise, *"and then we did it again."* But most Americans, in his reading, *"want the CIA and the NSA to spy on foreign leaders, even our friends"*: at minimum to learn a government's intentions in trade negotiations, at most to disrupt an attack. *"The American people love it and they want more of it."* Domestic surveillance is the opposite case, *"that is very specifically illegal. These intelligence services are not allowed to spy on Americans, and they do it anyway."*[5][6][7]

By contrast, Kiriakou describes the Defense Intelligence Agency, a separate agency from the NSA that focuses on order-of-battle analysis, tracking troop and unit positions, as the most boring and least relevant work he encountered in his career.[8]

## See also

- [Intelligence Agencies](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/intelligence-agencies)
- [FBI](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/fbi)
- [Central Intelligence Agency](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia)
- [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)

## Sources

1. #GreenSocialist Notes #23: Whistleblowers with John Kiriakou (2021-05-12), at 45:21. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeOdsHdUUNw&t=2721s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2021-05-12-howie-hawkins-greensocialist-notes-23-whistleblowers-with-john-kiriak/
2. Arrested as a Spy, They Knew 9/11 Was Coming, CIA Stores Everything I Going Deeper w/JK - DEEP FOCUS (2026-02-24), at 16:30. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxFHq1qwbSo&t=990s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-24-deep-focus-arrested-as-spy-9-11-cia-stores-everything/
3. Doing Time Like A Spy — On Prison Survival & the CIA (2017-06-06), at 16:07. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-5yxHqYJ-k&t=967s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2017-06-06-disruption-network-lab/
4. CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou: They Can See All Your Messages! (2026-01-19), at 43:00. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUNoJ32eLBc&t=2580s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-01-19-diary-of-a-ceo-they-can-see-all-your-messages/
5. 环球时报 Global Times (2023-05-30), at 06:57. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88S43X0oUpE&t=417s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-05-30-global-times-global-times/
6. 环球时报 Global Times (2023-05-30), at 07:29. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88S43X0oUpE&t=449s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-05-30-global-times-global-times/
7. 环球时报 Global Times (2023-05-30), at 08:01. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88S43X0oUpE&t=481s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-05-30-global-times-global-times/
8. #05 CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou: The Truth They Trie (2025-05-05), at 26:44. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-ZUFCx1omA&t=1604s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-05-05-austin-and-matt/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/nsa/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt