The National Security Agency—the long-secret, then merely extremely secretive signals-intelligence behemoth—is launching a podcast to tell the public about its clandestine activities.
Dubbed “No Such Podcast” after the “No Such Agency” nickname, the audio series is coming soon, according to a trailer made available for reporting on Thursday. It will feature NSA experts discussing the agency’s role in combat support, signals intelligence, and cybersecurity missions, according to a spokesperson.
“NSA is known as home to the world’s greatest codemakers and codebreakers — their stories are now being decoded,” the spokesperson said.
An exact release date for the series was not made publicly available by press time.
The podcast trailer, just around 30 seconds long, is appropriately cryptic in its nature, but hints that it will explore stories about the agency’s past work in landmark military and intelligence events while educating listeners about NSA’s day-to-day activities.
“Success is the attack that never happened. For decades, the No Such Agency has protected the nation, our armed forces and built partnerships across the globe,” a narrator in the trailer says. “We’ve served in silence, and now it’s time to share that story.”
The podcast is part of a notable shift in how the NSA seeks to engage with the public and media about its work. In 2013, it faced virulent pushback from press groups, government officials, tech companies and the American public about its mass surveillance activities disclosed by former agency contractor Edward Snowden. The incident fueled an overhaul of how NSA works with the press, which included a sweeping outreach plan written in 2014.
The podcast’s launch echoes the Central Intelligence Agency’s opening of a Twitter account a decade ago: “We can neither confirm nor deny that this is our first tweet.” At the time, the CIA’s media team had reported an increase in visitors to its CIA.gov site, particularly to its historical blogs and career pages. Today, the CIA, which serves as America’s leading foreign intelligence agency, runs its own podcast dubbed “The Langley Files” after its Virginia headquarters.
Intelligence and security agencies under the Biden administration have pushed to share information about hackers and terror groups with the private sector, a move that first came in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that officials say could have been prevented if agencies weren’t stovepiped in their sharing of information.
The podcast takes a similar approach with a different angle, likely seeking to upend what it views as misconceptions about its work, which has often been shrouded in mystery and controversy. The agency has faced such scrutiny as recently as this year, when it backed a White House effort that pushed for the renewal of a contested surveillance power that allows spy agencies to target foreigners’ conversations overseas.
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