The US National Security Agency (NSA) plans to hire about 7,500 people over the next five years to meet "the increasing needs of the changing intelligence community," a press release posted its web site said.

The NSA, under the Department of Defense, is looking to recruit1,500 people by September this year and another 1,500 in each of the following four years, the secretive agency's largest recruiting effort since the 1980s.

The agency is looking to increase the number of new hires by 37percent compared to just one year ago and almost 50 percent more than in 2002.

The NSA is looking for people who are experienced in foreign languages, especially in Arabic and Chinese, and wants to hire people with specialties in intelligence analysis, signals analysisand technical fields such as mathematics, computer science, engineering and physical sciences, according to the release dated April 7.

The NSA, based at Fort Meade, Maryland, conducts electronic wiretapping and signals gathering for foreign intelligence purposes.

US intelligence agencies have been criticized for missteps thatsome people say failed to have prevented the Sept. 11 attacks. Forinstance, two messages among the millions the NSA intercepted on Sept. 10, 2001, reportedly warned of a major event the next day, but the two Arabic messages were not translated until Sept. 12, one day after the terror attacks.

Source: Xinhua