you *actually* think they didn't know of North Korea's missle tests beforehand? or that the bombing of the Chinese Embassy was an acident? i don't, not for a minute. when a government agency owns spy satelittes that can resolve the number on a car license plate from space, maps of enemy landscapes aren't outdated. the chinese embassy was probably watching what US forces are doing in the middle east and the US didn't like that, so they bombed the embassy. simple as that. there is a very fine line to be walked when you know the key to the enemy cipher and they don't know that you know, and if you act or prepare before the event actually happens you can lose this edge.
with an ultra secret agency like the NSA, there is no real way to find out what is and isn't true. the NSA budget may be more than $13B, and who knows, the NSA may have already developed a quantum computer too classified to share with the world. this is the same case as public key cryptography, which was developed at Britain's GCHQ and later announced to the world independently by RSA. the disinfo stream from the NSA will always muddy the waters. do governments really pay $26 for toilet paper because they "are out of touch," or are they just padding various purchase lists to pay for something else they'd rather not talk about? it's easy to get into conspiracy theories here, but that's not my point (or belief). secret agencies will always require educated speculation by outsiders because of propaghanda and misinformation, and the NSA is no exception.
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with an ultra secret agency like the NSA, there is no real way to find out what is and isn't true. the NSA budget may be more than $13B, and who knows, the NSA may have already developed a quantum computer too classified to share with the world. this is the same case as public key cryptography, which was developed at Britain's GCHQ and later announced to the world independently by RSA. the disinfo stream from the NSA will always muddy the waters. do governments really pay $26 for toilet paper because they "are out of touch," or are they just padding various purchase lists to pay for something else they'd rather not talk about? it's easy to get into conspiracy theories here, but that's not my point (or belief). secret agencies will always require educated speculation by outsiders because of propaghanda and misinformation, and the NSA is no exception.