> You do realize that all government agencies, especially those under the DoD, serve at the pleasure of the POTUS, right?
This is false. Government agencies largely are creations of statute law, and their existence is governed by Congress. The heads of agencies (and top-ranking subordinate officers to a certain level) often serve at the pleasure of the President, but the agencies themselves do not exist at his pleasure.
In most cases where the agencies that are not created by statute are subordinate to those that are, those subordinate agencies still do not exist at the discretion of the President, they exist under the statutory authority of some officer of the statutorily-created agency to which they report. (That officer may serve at the pleasure of the President, so the President could fire them for not acting as he wishes with respect to the subordinate agency, but the agency itself does not exist at the discretion of the President.)
There are exceptions -- subordinate organizations not created by statute within the Executive Office of the President, for instance -- but generally federal government agencies do not exist at the discretion of the President.
Heck, even doing this through a back-door approach by refusing to spend Congressionally-appropriated funds in order to kill a program has been ruled unconstitutional; Train v. City of New York, 420 U.S. 35 (1975).
"Independent agencies of the United States federal government are those agencies that exist outside of the federal executive departments (those headed by a Cabinet secretary). More specifically, the term may be used to describe agencies that, while constitutionally part of the executive branch, are independent of presidential control, usually because the president's power to dismiss the agency head or a member is limited."
The NSA isn't an independent agency, it's a part of the US military chain of command under the Department of Defense and hence is under the direct control of the Command in Chief.
The head of the NSA is always an active enlisted officer who is part of the of the joint chiefs (Admiral/General ;)) and is also the commander of the US Armed Forces Joint Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency
> The NSA isn't an independent agency, it's a part of the US military chain of command under the Department of Defense and hence is under the direct control of the Command in Chief.
The NSA's existence, as well as some particular details of officers that it must have, etc., are mandated by Congress in statute; see the National Security Agency Act of 1959 (and subsequent amendments thereto.) That it is within the military chain of command doesn't change this; Congress's power to do direct the structure of the military is an enumerated power in Article, Section 8. The designation of the President as Commander-in-Chief does not make the President unreviewed dictator of the military, it simply restricts Congress power over military organization such that the Congress cannot place authority to command the military within the regulations adopted by Congress in some other person than the President.
Congress's power to direct the existence, function, organization, and funding of agencies -- and the President's lack of Constitutional power to disregard Congress's directions on those matters and disband statutorily-mandated programs and agencies -- is not, contrary to your description, restricted to independent agencies. It absolutely does extend to federal executive departments, including the Department of Defense.
> The head of the NSA is always an active enlisted officer who is part of the of the joint chiefs
No:
(1) The Director of the NSA is always an active commissioned officer (and a four-star flag officer during the tenure in the position.) Commissioned officers are not enlisted personnel.
(2) The Director of the NSA is not a member of the Joint Chiefs -- the Joint Chiefs of Staff include the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the Chiefs of Staff of each service (Chief of Staff of the Army, Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Chief of Naval Operations, Commandant of the Marine Corps, and the Chief of the National Guard Bureau.) The Director of the NSA is Chief of the Cyber Security Service, but not every position with the word "Chief" in it in the military is a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
> The NSA isn't an independent agency, it's a part of the US military chain of command under the Department of Defense and hence is under the direct control of the Command in Chief.
The NSA's existence, as well as some particular details of officers that it must have and its functions and duties, are mandated by Congress in Statute; see the National Security Agency Act of 1959 (and subsequent amendments thereto.) That it is within the military chain of command doesn't change this; Congress's power to do direct the structure of the military is an enumerated power in Article, Section 8. The designation of the President as Commander-in-Chief does not make the President unreviewed dictator of the military, it simply restricts Congress power over military organization such that the Congress cannot place authority to command the military within the regulations adopted by Congress in some other person than the President.
Congress's power to direct the existence, function, organization, and funding of agencies -- and the President's lack of Constitutional power to disregard Congress's directions on those matters and disband statutorily-mandated programs and agencies -- is not, contrary to your description, restricted to independent agencies. It absolutely does extend to federal executive departments, including the Department of Defense.
"The Act does not describe the functions of the National Security Agency (NSA), but deals with "housekeeping" matters such as pay and allowances, training, property acquisition, and leasing, It exempted NSA from the requirement to provide detailed information regarding organizational and functional matters to the Civil Service Commission (the predecessor of the Office of Personnel Management)."
The NSA is the only Agency that it's mission is dictated by the Executive Branch.
I didn't think this comment would blow up so much. Thank you for clarifying my point. I should have cited sources, but NSA specifically literally directly serves the POTUS. He can _literally_ shut it down tomorrow, among other things.
There is no such thing as an "enlisted officer" in the uniformed services of the United States. There are Non-Commissioned Officers, but they're not actually officers and they're never in command of anything larger than a patrol boat or a tank.
"The agency was formally established by Truman in a memorandum of October 24, 1952, that revised National Security Council Intelligence Directive (NSCID) 9.[28] Since President Truman's memo was a classified document,[28] the existence of the NSA was not known to the public at that time."
I believe that you are correct that the NSA was originally an agency created by unilateral Presidential action that could have been disbanded by discretionary Presidential action, however, AFAICT, it has been a regular statutory agency since the adoption of the National Security Agency Act of 1959. [0]
This is false. Government agencies largely are creations of statute law, and their existence is governed by Congress. The heads of agencies (and top-ranking subordinate officers to a certain level) often serve at the pleasure of the President, but the agencies themselves do not exist at his pleasure.
In most cases where the agencies that are not created by statute are subordinate to those that are, those subordinate agencies still do not exist at the discretion of the President, they exist under the statutory authority of some officer of the statutorily-created agency to which they report. (That officer may serve at the pleasure of the President, so the President could fire them for not acting as he wishes with respect to the subordinate agency, but the agency itself does not exist at the discretion of the President.)
There are exceptions -- subordinate organizations not created by statute within the Executive Office of the President, for instance -- but generally federal government agencies do not exist at the discretion of the President.
Heck, even doing this through a back-door approach by refusing to spend Congressionally-appropriated funds in order to kill a program has been ruled unconstitutional; Train v. City of New York, 420 U.S. 35 (1975).