it's basically the same as CIA.
This brings up a question I've had for quite awhile.
Why aren't the CIA and NSA part of the military??
Can anyone answer this?

Separation of power. Originally, the CIA was an intelligence GATHERING agency... yes, the OSS did some cloak and dagger stuff, but the main aim was to gather information, therefore, very little direct action was to be taken, such as influencing other countries, fomenting revolution, and other things the CIA has been known to do.

The NSA is supposed to be strictly a satelite recon agency.

If you are president, you want to have mulitiple intel sources, so that you dont make decisions that could possibly affect millions of lives off just one point of view... Even in the height of the Stalinist Soviet Union, there were 2 different intel units, the KGB and the GRU for this very reason.

Of course, since the CIA and NSA are now installations in the beauracracy, they believe they need to have thier fingers in all pies, so they are both developing thier own special ops units.... as if we dont have enough spooks already...