Monthly Archives: March 2015

Men Disguised As Women Spark NSA Shooting
Sources said gunfire erupted Monday morning at the gate of the National Security Agency #39;s facility at Fort Meade in Maryland when two men disguised as women in a stolen car tried to enter....

By: wochit General News

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Men Disguised As Women Spark NSA Shooting - Video

Fort Meade, Md. Two cross-dressing men who were fired upon by National Security Agency police when they disobeyed orders at a heavily guarded gate had just stolen a car from a man who had picked them up and checked into a motel, police said Tuesday.

The FBI said the driver, Ricky Shawatza Hall, 27, died at the scene, and his passenger remained hospitalized Tuesday with unspecified injuries. An NSA police officer was treated for minor injuries and released.

NSA police opened fire on the stolen sports utility vehicle after Mr. Hall failed to follow instructions for leaving a restricted area, authorities said.

As it turns out, Hall and his passenger had just driven off in the SUV of a 60-year-old Baltimore man, who told investigators that he had picked up the two strangers in Baltimore and brought them to a Howard County motel.

"We can't confirm there was any sexual activity involved," a Howard County Police spokeswoman, Mary Phelan, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The SUV's owner, who has not been publicly identified, said they checked into a room at the Terrace Motel in Elkridge at about 7:30 a.m. Monday, and that he used the bathroom about an hour later. When he came out, the men were gone, along with his car keys.

He called police to report the stolen car, and only minutes later, just before 9 a.m., the men took a highway exit that leads directly to a restricted area at the NSA entrance at Fort Meade.

The two men were dressed as women, but "not in an attempt to disguise themselves from authorities," FBI spokeswoman Amy Thoreson said.

Hall has a lengthy criminal record that includes assault and robbery charges. In 2013, Hall was charged after he assaulted a woman and stole a bottle of methadone from her pocket. Court papers show that Hall had been wearing a yellow dress at the time of the assault and was mistaken for a woman. In 2014, Hall was charged with robbery after stealing a vest and skirt from a Baltimore clothing store.

The FBI has ruled out terrorism, and no one has explained yet why the men ended up in a restricted NSA area.

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Cross-dressing man killed by NSA had lengthy record

Not many students have the cutting-edge cybersecurity skills the NSA needs, recruiters say. And these days industry is paying top dollar for talent. Brooks Kraft/Corbis hide caption

Not many students have the cutting-edge cybersecurity skills the NSA needs, recruiters say. And these days industry is paying top dollar for talent.

Daniel Swann is exactly the type of person the National Security Agency would love to have working for it. The 22-year-old is a fourth-year concurrent bachelor's-master's student at Johns Hopkins University with a bright future in cybersecurity.

And growing up in Annapolis, Md., not far from the NSA's headquarters, Swann thought he might work at the agency, which intercepts phone calls, emails and other so-called "signals intelligence" from U.S. adversaries.

"When I was a senior in high school I thought I would end up working for a defense contractor or the NSA itself," Swann says. Then, in 2013, NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked a treasure-trove of top-secret documents. They showed that the agency's programs to collect intelligence were far more sweeping than Americans realized.

After Snowden's revelations, Swann's thinking changed. The NSA's tactics, which include retaining data from American citizens, raise too many questions in his mind: "I can't see myself working there," he says, "partially because of these moral reasons."

This year, the NSA needs to find 1,600 recruits. Hundreds of them must come from highly specialized fields like computer science and mathematics. So far, it says, the agency has been successful. But with its popularity down, and pay from wealthy Silicon Valley companies way up, agency officials concede that recruitment is a worry. If enough students follow Daniel Swann, then one of the world's most powerful spy agencies could lose its edge.

People Power Makes The Difference

Contrary to popular belief, the NSA's black buildings aren't simply filled with code-cracking supercomputers.

"There's no such thing as a computer that can break any code," says Neal Ziring, a technical lead in the agency's information assurance directorate. "People like to think there's some magic bullet here, and there isn't. It's all hard work."

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After Snowden, The NSA Faces Recruitment Challenge

Two men dressed as women smashed a stolen car into a police vehicle after they disobeyed commands at the closely guarded gates of the nation's spy agency on Monday, prompting police to open fire.

One of the men died, the other was injured and a police officer also was taken to a hospital. Details remained unclear hours later. Initial images from the scene showed emergency workers loading the uniformed officer into an ambulance. Nearby were a dark-colored SUV and an SUV emblazoned with "NSA Police," both heavily damaged.

It was not known why the men wound up at the gate at Fort Meade, a sprawling military post that houses the National Security Agency, or why they did not obey orders from NSA police. Fort Meade is just off Interstate 295 between Baltimore and Washington.

The men were dressed as women, said a senior defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss an ongoing case. It also was unclear exactly what the men were wearing.

The NSA said in a news release that investigators have not yet determined how the man in the vehicle died, and the conditions of the wounded man and officer were not disclosed.

An agency officer gave the driver "routine instructions for safely exiting the secure campus," but the driver disobeyed them, the release said. The driver then accelerated toward a police vehicle blocking the road, and police then opened fire.

An FBI spokeswoman said earlier in the day that the incident was not believed to be linked to terrorism. The NSA said the incident was contained to the perimeter of the secure campus.

The car that rammed the police vehicle had been stolen Monday morning from a hotel in Jessup, Maryland, said Mary Phelan, a spokeswoman for the Howard County Police Department. She declined to name the hotel, citing the ongoing investigation, or release any further details, referring all questions to the FBI.

A strip of hotels, motels and other businesses is less than 10 miles from Fort Meade in Jessup.

The FBI is investigating and working with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Maryland to determine if federal charges are warranted, FBI spokeswoman Amy J. Thoreson said in an email.

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NSA: 1 Dead After Car Rams Police Vehicle at Fort Meade

FORT MEADE, Md. (AP) -- Two cross-dressing men who were fired upon by National Security Agency police when they disobeyed orders at a heavily guarded gate had just stolen a car from a man who had picked them up to "party" at a motel, police said Tuesday.

The FBI said the driver, Ricky Shawatza Hall, 27, died at the scene, and his passenger remained hospitalized Tuesday with unspecified injuries. An NSA police officer was treated for minor injuries and released.

NSA police opened fire on the stolen sports utility vehicle after Hall failed to follow instructions for leaving a restricted area, authorities said.

As it turns out, Hall and his passenger had just driven off in the SUV of a 60-year-old Baltimore man, who told investigators that he had picked up the two strangers in Baltimore and brought them to a Howard County motel to "party."

Howard County Police "can't confirm there was any sexual activity involved," spokeswoman Mary Phelan told The Associated Press on Tuesday. She also declined to elaborate on whether drugs or alcohol were part of their plan.

The SUV's owner, who has not been publicly identified, said they checked into a room at the Terrace Motel in Elkridge at about 7:30 a.m. Monday, and that he used the bathroom about an hour later. When he came out, the men were gone, along with his car keys.

He called police to report the stolen car, and only minutes later, just before 9 a.m., the men took a highway exit that leads directly to a restricted area at the NSA entrance at Fort Meade.

The two men were dressed as women, but "not in an attempt to disguise themselves from authorities," FBI spokeswoman Amy Thoreson said.

The FBI has ruled out terrorism, and no one has explained yet why the men ended up in a restricted NSA area.

However, the new timeline suggests they may have simply taken a wrong turn while fleeing the motel, about 12 minutes away.

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NSA shooting: FBI identifies man killed

Story highlights Two people tried to enter the main gate to enter the headquarters of the National Security Agency at Fort Meade. One died at the scene, and another was wounded, the NSA says.

His passenger who remained hospitalized Tuesday has not been publicly identified.

On Monday morning, Hall attempted to gain entry at the National Security Agency headquarters, Jonathan Freed, NSA director of strategic communications, said in a statement.

"The driver failed to obey an NSA Police officer's routine instructions for safely exiting the secure campus. The vehicle failed to stop and barriers were deployed."

NSA police on the scene fired on the vehicle when it accelerated toward a police car, blocking its way, according to the NSA. An NSA police officer was also hospitalized but not identified.

The two men who officials say tried to ram the main gate at NSA headquarters were dressed as women, according to a federal law enforcement official.

Investigators are looking into whether the men were under the influence of drugs following a night of partying, a federal law enforcement official said.

A man reported his car stolen from a hotel not far away from NSA Headquarters and said he had been with two men who had taken his car. Cocaine was found in the vehicle. The Howard County Police Department confirms that a Ford Escape reported stolen in Howard County, Maryland, is the vehicle involved in the incident.

The FBI said Monday morning that it was conducting an investigation with NSA police and other law enforcement agencies, and interviewing witnesses on the scene. The incident took place near one of the gates to the complex, far from the main buildings. The FBI said they did not think terrorism was related to the incident.

"We are working with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Maryland to determine if federal charges are warranted," the FBI said in a statement.

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2 men dressed as women ram NSA gate