Aerial Photos of NSA and U.S. Intelligence Agencies

NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY (NSA) in Fort Meade, Maryland

No you’re not being paranoid. Edward Snowden’s leak of NSA documents shows just how robust the government’s Orwellian data-gathering apparatus has become. But despite the spy agency’s prominence in the news, only one stock photo has been distributed to the media.

“Since June 2013, article after article about the NSA has been illustrated with a single image supplied by the agency, a photograph of its Fort Meade headquarters that appears to date from the 1970s” writes photographer Trevor Paglen.

So, Paglen rented a helicopter and shot nighttime photos of NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland and some of the government’s other’s largest intelligence agencies, such as the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the latter of which is not nearly as well known as the NSA despite its budget and size.

NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE OFFICE (NRO) in Chantilly, Virginia

“The NRO is in charge of developing, deploying and operating secret reconnaissance satellites,” said Paglen. “With a budget request of $10.3 billion, it is the third-largest U.S. intelligence agency.” And most people have probably never heard of it. For those keeping score, the CIA is the largest intelligence agency, followed by the NSA.

As for the photos themselves, they were commissioned by Creative Time Reports and are “being placed in the public domain without restriction.” Enjoy!

NATIONAL GEOSPATIAL-INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (NGA) in Springfield, Virginia