And this was Before 9-11

“Biggest U.S. spy agency choking on too much information”

By Correspondent David Ensor, 07/01

FORT MEADE, Maryland (CNN) -- The largest U.S. spy agency, the National Security Agency, is in crisis, overwhelmed by too many targets, too much information and the challenges created by increasingly sophisticated technologies.

The NSA is headquartered at Fort Meade, Maryland, about halfway between Washington and Baltimore. With its 38,000 employees, it is more than twice the size of the CIA, and at least twice as secretive.

"It produces, probably produces, 80 percent of the intelligence the United States uses," said James Bamford, author of "The Puzzle Palace." The agency's mission is to listen for threats to U.S. national security and it faces an increasingly daunting task.