The National Security Agency will neither confirm nor deny the stuff you buy in its gift shop.
The boilerplate Glomar Response — the government agency equivalent of "no comment" when asked for documents — caught our eye while checking out the NSA's museum right outside its fenced walls at Fort Meade, Md.
There on the window outside the NSA's gift shop (there's a gift shop?!) stood a lone sign saying the agency didn't endorse any of this stuff.
You can buy our merchandise, people, but don't come knocking on the door asking for refunds.
Check out what we found inside.
The NSA's museum, called the National Cryptologic Museum, is located about a stone's throw from the agency's headquarters at Fort Meade, Md.
There's a bunch of interesting stuff inside, though a few exhibits take some liberty with facts surrounding the agency's history.
Source: TI
As with any museum visit, we had to check out the gift shop before we left ...
Right as you walk in, you're greeted by a display case full of glasses and other stuff with the NSA logo.
These glasses have the NSA seal right on the bottom. So when you finish your drink, you can have a reminder that someone is watching, maybe.
The museum didn't have a gift shop when it originally opened in 1993.
It came roughly three years later after visitors started complaining. "People are used to seeing a gift store in a museum," Jack E. Ingram, the museum's curator, told LAT. "They kept asking, 'Gee, why don't you have a gift store? When are you getting one?' "
Source: The Los Angeles Times
So now you can buy everything from coffee cups ...
... To lanyards and "spy gear."
And even, Magic 8-Balls.
While customers to the museum include the general public and NSA employees ...
... We have a feeling NSA employees aren't going to be wearing a shirt that says "I Break Codes" around town. Interestingly, the shop was selling a copy of James Bamford's "The Puzzle Palace."
Widely considered the gold standard account of NSA history, the agency actually tried to suppress it and threatened the author with legal action.
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