All here who think giving Al Qaeda information is no big deal, raise your hands

[muriel_volestrangler]

101. Names of NSA employees in anti-al-Qaeda operation - now on LinkedIn

In that second report, Craig Whitlock and Barton Gellman shared a few tidbits about the role of the government's hacking unit, Tailored Access Operations (TAO) in the hunt, writing that TAO "enabled the NSA to collect intelligence from mobile phones that were used by al-Qaeda operatives and other 'persons of interest' in the bin Laden hunt."
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But for all the reported secrecy surrounding TAO's activities, a quick search of networking site LinkedIn shows a number of current and former intelligence community employees talking pretty openly about the exploits.

For instance, Brendan Conlon, whose page lists him as a former Deputy Chief of Integrated Cyber Operations for the NSA and former Chief of TAO in Hawaii, says that he led "a large group of joint service NSA civilians and contractors in executing Computer Network Exploitation (CNE) operations against target networks." Barbara Hunt, who is listed as a former Director of Capabilities at TAO in Fort Meade, similarly claims she was "responsible for end-to-end development and capability delivery to build a versatile computer network exploitation effort."

Dean Schyvincht, who claims to currently be a TAO Senior Computer Network Operator in Texas, might reveal the most about the scope of TAO activities. He says the 14 personnel under his management have completed "over 54,000 Global Network Exploitation (GNE) operations in support of national intelligence agency requirements." Just imagine how productive the team in Fort Meade, rumored to have about 600 people, must be.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/29/the-nsa-has-its-own-team-of-elite-hackers/