> On April 1, a Navy EP-3 electronic spy plane, operated by the National Security Agency and on patrol along the Chinese coast, was forced to make an emergency landing on China's Hainan Island. After evacuating the crew, Chinese intelligence agents went to work extracting some of the agency's most secret espionage and cryptologic equipment, along with piles of documents classified above top secret. An enormous windfall, the hardware, software, and documents gave Chinese intelligence critical insight into the NSA's targets in their country, and the methods used to spy on them.<p>I don't understand this at all. Why would a spy plane be carrying all that? Why would top secret documents be unencrypted (or decryptable by the couriers of said documents)?