In the difficult days after 9/11, White House officials quietly passed the word through Washington's alphabet soup of intelligence agencies: tell us which weapons you need to stop another attack. At the super-secretive NSA, the National Security Agency (also known as No Such Agency), the request came hack: give us permission to col- lect information on people inside the United States. The NSA had been struggling, without much success, to listen in on terrorists who use cheap and easily avail- able encrypted phones, and officials eagerly drew up a wish list, according to a participant in the discussions. This source, who declined to be identified discussing sensitive matters, said NSA officials did not really expect the White House to say yes to domestic spying. After scandals over wiretapping erupted in the 1970s, the code breakers and electronic sleuths at the NSA had been essentially restricted to eavesdropping on conversations between foreigners abroad. American residents and even most foreign visitors to the United States were off-limits to "Big Noddy," as NSA insiders call their giant "Ear in the Sky" surveillance capability.
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机译：在9/11之后的艰难日子里，白宫官员悄悄地通过华盛顿情报机构的字母来传达这个词：告诉我们，您需要哪种武器来制止另一次袭击。在超级秘密的国家安全局国家安全局（National Security Agency，也称为No Such Agency）中，请求被黑了：请允许我们收集有关美国境内人员的信息。讨论的参与者称，国家安全局一直在努力听取使用廉价且易于使用的加密电话的恐怖分子的努力，但收效甚微，官员们急切地提出了一份愿望清单。这位不愿透露姓名讨论敏感问题的消息人士说，国家安全局官员并不真正希望白宫对国内间谍说“是”。在1970年代爆发了关于窃听的丑闻之后，NSA的密码破解程序和电子侦探基本上被限制在窃听国外外国人之间的对话中。美国国家安全局内部人士称，美国居民甚至大多数来美国的外国游客都禁止进入“大诺丁”，因为他们称之为“空中巨人”的巨大监视能力。
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