Talk:United States Air Force Security Service

"regardless of what the author has written"
There's a sentence in the following paragraph that seems out of place: "Wakkanai, Japan and Hof, Germany were active in the 1960 - to about 1967 period. Hof in now closed, Wakkanai is under the control of the Japanese. Wakkanai monitored the Sea of Japan area and the Russian Airfield on Sakhalin as well as areas of North Korea and Russia. Wakkanai AS closed in 82 or 84, regardless of what the author has written." I don't know which author this sentence is referring to. According to "US SIGINT activities in Japan" ( pg 226 in http://nautilus.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/US-signals-intelligence-SIGINT-activities-in-Japan-final-v2.pdf), Wakkani AS was turned over to Japan in 1972; USAFSS personnel returned to the now-Japanese complex for special projects, and the NSA stationed a 30-person joint service operation there in 1982 (Project CLEF). It says, also, that in 1986-88, a remote rack at Wakkanai was operated that sent all information back to Misawa.

If we keep this paragraph, I suggest "Wakkanai AS closed in 82 or 84, regardless of what the author has written" be deleted. It's sufficient to say that it's now controlled by Japan. Schaz (talk) 01:02, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Not enough sources
The majority of this article seems to be original research. The one actual source link in the article (http://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic_heritage/vigilance_park/index.shtml) redirects to a page for a museum (https://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic-heritage/museum/). I'm trying to find offline sources, as there's little online to support any of the information. Schaz (talk) 22:40, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Adding the few online sources I can find here, until I learn how to add them properly to the article.

Air Force Intelligence Fact Sheet (https://www.afhra.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/433911/air-force-intelligence-command/) provides dates of when USAFSS was established and changed names.

United States Air Force Security Service: an Enlisted Command (http://www.usafssmisawa.com/hist/sncoa-enlisted-command.pdf -- student research paper, not sure if acceptable source)

Twenty Fifth Air Force Chronology (https://www.25af.af.mil/Portals/100/Documents/AFD-150310-024.pdf?ver=2016-02-11-120759-373)

1948-2009 A Continuing Legacy (http://ifel-yale.com/docs_usafss/AFD-091130-022.pdf)

great list of USAFSS units, but not a valid source unfortunately (http://6901st.org/list.htm) Schaz (talk) 23:27, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Complete rewrite
I know there have been a number of contributions to this article from those who lived it (thank you for your service!), but I was unable to find good sources for much of the information that had been added over the years. So, I started fresh with the sources I could find.

It's really hard not to add information that I know to be true (I was there, too), but without good references, it's just original research. I've an interlibrary loan request for a book that will hopefully give me more to enhance this article. Schaz (talk) 01:50, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Citation needed
Someone has added back in text from the previous iteration of the article that lacks a source. Specifically, "Composed primarily of airmen culled from the cream of the Air Force's enlisted recruits (the top 1/2 of 1 percent), the USAFSS was a secretive and tight-knit branch of Air Force cold warriors tasked with monitoring, collecting and interpreting military voice and electronic signals of countries of interest (which often were Soviet and their satellite Eastern bloc countries)."

I tagged it as citation needed. If anyone can provide a reliable source, please add it. Schazjmd (talk) 22:57, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Beyond the Wild Blue
Very disheartening. Walter J. Boyne's "Beyond the Wild Blue: A History of the United States Air Force 1947-2007" doesn't mention USAFSS once. Not even in the appendix chronology. (He neglects Electronic Security Command as well.) And this is in the edition updated in 2007, so "classified" not much of an excuse. Hmpf. Schazjmd (talk) 01:36, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Requested assessment
I just noticed the "redirect class" assessment; have asked for a reassessment.
 * No reassessment after 3 months, so I changed it to "start class". Schazjmd (talk) 23:54, 14 March 2019 (UTC)