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The Cowboy Of The NSA

Inside The NSA Chief's Effort To Build The Ultimate Spy Machine
Jade Walker
By 

Overnight Editor, HuffPost

WASHINGTON - JULY 26: National Security Agency Director Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander listens to remarks during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill July 26, 2006 in Washington, DC. The committee is hearing testimony on the 'FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) for the 21st Century. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON - JULY 26: National Security Agency Director Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander listens to remarks during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill July 26, 2006 in Washington, DC. The committee is hearing testimony on the 'FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) for the 21st Century. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

On Aug. 1, 2005, Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander reported for duty as the 16th director of the National Security Agency, the United States' largest intelligence organization. He seemed perfect for the job. Alexander was a decorated Army intelligence officer and a West Point graduate with master's degrees in systems technology and physics. He had run intelligence operations in combat and had held successive senior-level positions, most recently as the director of an Army intelligence organization and then as the service's overall chief of intelligence. He was both a soldier and a spy, and he had the heart of a tech geek. Many of his peers thought Alexander would make a perfect NSA director. But one prominent person thought otherwise: the prior occupant of that office.

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