The National Security Agency, or NSA, was first established in 1952 to direct communication intelligence within the Department of Justice. President Harry S. Truman issued a presidential memorandum to create the NSA after investigations uncovered lapses in crucial information building up to the Pearl Harbor attacks. The contents of Truman’s memorandum are still kept private, and the entire NSA project was so secretive that it did not become public knowledge until three years after it was created. The entire agency has been shrouded in secrecy from its onset partially because of the massive data it has gathered unconstitutionally. Communications collected from foreign parties are considered constitutional, even if they are intercepted between an American citizen and foreign individual. However, once the United States government spies on citizen-to-citizen communication, Fourth Amendment rights to privacy are violated if a warrant is not issued prior to the tapping. The NSA has grown exponentially over several decades with the expansion of agency programs, pro-surveillance legislation, and technological improvements.
The Rise of Government Surveillance 