TAO and ANT: The NSA's "Office of Tailored Access Operations"

By Jeralyn, Section Civil Liberties
Posted on Tue Dec 31, 2013 at 08:31:00 AM EST
Tags: NSA Warrantless Surveillance, TAO. ANT (all tags)

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Der Spiegel has several feature articles this week on the NSA's backdoor program TAO, which stands for "Tailored Access Operations."

This is the NSA's top operative unit -- something like a squad of plumbers that can be called in when normal access to a target is blocked.

According to internal NSA documents viewed by SPIEGEL, these on-call digital plumbers are involved in many sensitive operations conducted by American intelligence agencies. TAO's area of operations ranges from counterterrorism to cyber attacks to traditional espionage.

[More...]

Where are the Tao units?

There are now TAO units in Wahiawa, Hawaii; Fort Gordon, Georgia; at the NSA's outpost at Buckley Air Force Base, near Denver, Colorado; at its headquarters in Fort Meade; and, of course, in San Antonio.

Der Spiegel contacted the NSA for a response to its article, which is based on documents it received. Here's the statement the NSA sent back:

"Tailored Access Operations is a unique national asset that is on the front lines of enabling NSA to defend the nation and its allies." The statement added that TAO's "work is centered on computer network exploitation in support of foreign intelligence collection." The officials said they would not discuss specific allegations regarding TAO's mission.

As for who TAO hires to do its business:

Their job is breaking into, manipulating and exploiting computer networks, making them hackers and civil servants in one. Many resemble geeks -- and act the part, too.

In a related article, Der Spiegel describes ANT, which presumably stands for "Advanced or Access Network Technology" -- which it describes as a unit that functions as a carpenter to TAO, building its tools. ANT has a 50 page "catalog"