Physical Security Policies
(From the NSA Handbook)

The physical security program at NSA provides protection for classified material and operations and ensures that only persons authorized access to the Agency's spaces and classified material are permitted such access. This program is concerned not only with the Agency's physical plant and facilities, but also with the internal and external procedures for safeguarding the Agency's classified material and activities. Therefore, physical security safeguards include Security Protective Officers, fences, concrete barriers, access control points, identification badges, safes, and the compartmentalization of physical spaces. While any one of these safeguards represents only a delay factor against attempts to gain unauthorized access to NSA spaces and material, the total combination of all these safeguards represents a formidable barrier against physical penetration of NSA. Working together with personnel security policies, they provide "security in depth."

The physical security program depends on interlocking procedures. The responsibility for carrying out many of these procedures rests with the individual. This means you, and every person employed by, assign, or detailed to the Agency, must assume the responsibility for protecting classified material. Included in your responsibilities are: challenging visitors in operational areas; determining "need-to-know;" limiting classified conversations to approved areas; following established locking and checking procedures; properly using the secure and non-secure telephone systems; correctly wrapping and packaging classified data for transmittal; and placing classified waste in burn bags.

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