When the National Security Agency was created through a top secret memorandum signed by U.S. President Harry Truman in 1952, the agency was so secret that only a few members of Congress knew about it. While the NSA gradually became known over the decades, its inner workings remain extremely hidden, even with the recent leaks about its gathering of Americans' phone records and tapping into data from the nine largest Internet companies.
Let's pull back the shroud a bit to demystify this agency.
1. The NSA is allowed to spy on everyone, everywhere.