There are fun patents there from all kinds of areas -- antenna design, database search, sorting, splitting data out of an optical fiber but also ... child car seat ( http://www.google.com/patents/US5224756 ) and game board design? Was NSA concerned about child safety. Are the workers that bored there they design child seats and game boards... so many questions. Also rifle holding tool: http://www.google.com/patents/USD681766 -- who are they shooting at?

Also wondering how these contradict with compartmentalization. Is there one department in charge of monitoring public patents and then notifyng USPTO? I would imagine there is a designated person from each department in charge perhaps. What if a system is part of a top secret program? Can't imagine anything patent related conflicting or allowed to jeopardize that.

Then can you troll the NSA by filling ambiguous or broad patents in certain areas to try to see if they'll think you've matched one of their patents and then publish any of their patents?