United States Special Collections Service

CSS seal

The Special Collections Service (SCS) is a group within the United States Central Security Service agency that is not officially recognized. Its purpose is to put sophisticated eavesdropping equipment- from bugs to parabolic antennas- in difficult-to-reach places. It also attempts to target for recruitment key foreign communications personnel such as database managers systems administrators, and IT specialists.

The Central Security Service was established by Presidential Directive in 1972 to promote full partnership between the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Service Cryptologic Elements (SCE) of the United States Armed Forces. The SCS facility is located in Beltsville, Maryland.

The specialized intelligence gathering capabilities of the Special Collections Service include:

• Clandestine operations involving surveillance and penetration of target facilities, including "black bag" style operations.^{[citation needed]}
• Cryptographic side channel and key recovery attacks involving EMSEC and COMSEC specialties.^{[citation needed]}
• Covert communication capture and relay of target information.^{[citation needed]}
• Operation of unmanned aerial vehicles for surveillance and perimeter penetration.^{[citation needed]}

The combination of Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency resources are used to cover the requisite speciality skills tasked of this agency into a single clandestine intelligence organization that falls under director of NSA and secretary of defense oversight. Given the nature of post 9/11 counter terrorism strategies employed by the United States of America the operations of the Special Collections Service have experienced significant growth in scale and complexity.

External links

• A Secret Alliance Between the CIA and the NSA
• Back Channels transcript