NSA Impact In Other Countries

The latest Intercept article on the Snowden NSA documents talks about their undercover operatives working in foreign companies. There are no specifics, although the countries China, Germany, and South Korea are mentioned. It's also hard to tell if the NSA has undercover operatives working in companies in those countries, or has undercover contractors visiting those companies. The document is dated 2004, although there's no reason to believe that the NSA has changed its behavior since then.

The most controversial revelation in Sentry Eagle might be a fleeting reference to the NSA infiltrating clandestine agents into "commercial entities." The briefing document states that among Sentry Eagle's most closely guarded components are "facts related to NSA personnel (under cover), operational meetings, specific operations, specific technology, specific locations and covert communications related to SIGINT enabling with specific commercial entities (A/B/C)""
It is not clear whether these "commercial entities" are American or foreign or both. Generally the placeholder "(A/B/C)" is used in the briefing document to refer to American companies, though on one occasion it refers to both American and foreign companies. Foreign companies are referred to with the placeholder "(M/N/O)." The NSA refused to provide any clarification to The Intercept.

That program is SENTRY OSPREY, which is a program under SENTRY EAGLE.

The document makes no other reference to NSA agents working under cover. It is not clear whether they might be working as full-time employees at the "commercial entities," or whether they are visiting commercial facilities under false pretenses.

Least fun job right now: being the NSA person who fielded the telephone call from the The Intercept to clarify that (A/B/C)/(M/N/O) thing. "Hi. We're going public with SENTRY EAGLE next week. There's one thing in the document we don't understand, and we wonder if you could help us...." Actually, that's wrong. The person who fielded the phone call had no idea what SENTRY EAGLE was. The least fun job belongs to the person up the command chain who did.