In the Loop: The NSA wants you to help them party with panache

The sign outside the National Security Agency campus in Fort Meade, Md. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

For many years, the National Security Agency (NSA) was seen as the most secretive of agencies, beyond impenetrable. The joke was that NSA stood for No Such Agency.

Butlongbefore Edward Snowden blew the cover off the joint, the agency had been lightening up. Like other intelligence agencies, the State Department and the White House, NSA has for many decades hada protocol office to handle official events, visitors and such.

We came across a recent agency help-wanted ad for an NSA protocol officer, whose job would be to explain and apply codes and procedures of social behavior, etiquette and ceremony. Yes, you can bean events planner and virtual latter-day Emily Post.

Youll coordinate, plan and organize. . . visits, ceremonies, dinners and conferences. . . And when big-wigs come to the Fort Meade, youll make sure they can get into the building and have security, transportation and special diet.

You have to have the ability to plan/organize/coordinate and do multitasking, thead says, plus,be able to view computer screen continuously for two hours or more and be able to stand, walk, or kneel for long periods. (Kneel?)

If you can meet all those criteria, then pass a drug test, security background investigation and a polygraph,NSA will pay you between $42,631 and $67,787 a year.(Not much for someone with skills like those.)

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In the Loop: The NSA wants you to help them party with panache