Encrypted Venona

To Whom It May Concern:

This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act. I hereby request the following records:

Unencrypted and untranslated copies of messages which were examined by the February 1943 project later codenamed VENONA and ended on October 1st 1980, specifically including any messages which were not successfully or fully decrypted or translated.

The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is being made for educational and not for commercial purposes. Disclosing the encrypted documents will improve the public's understanding of the NSA's work in cryptography and will allow for the public to attempt to identify methods for decrypting the remaining documents through cryptanalysis, brute force efforts or discovering and exploiting cryptographic weaknesses such as re-used One Time Pads.

In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 20 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Michael Best

That should have read "Encrypted and untranslated copies of messages which were examined by the February 1943 project later codenamed VENONA and ended on October 1st 1980, specifically including any messages which were not successfully or fully decrypted or translated."