Merry Christmas from the NSA
On Christmas Eve, the NSA released a bunch of audit reports on illegal spying using EO 12333 from 2001 to 2013.
Bloomberg article.
The heavily-redacted reports include examples of data on Americans being e-mailed to unauthorized recipients, stored in unsecured computers and retained after it was supposed to be destroyed, according to the documents. They were posted on the NSA’s website at around 1:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve.
In a 2012 case, for example, an NSA analyst “searched her spouse’s personal telephone directory without his knowledge to obtain names and telephone numbers for targeting,” according to one report. The analyst “has been advised to cease her activities,” it said.
The documents were released in response to an ACLU lawsuit.
Another article.
EDITED TO ADD (12/27): Remember Edward Snowden’s comment that he could eavesdrop on anybody? “I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you, or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President if I had a personal email.” Lots of people have accused him of lying. Here’s former NSA General Counsel Stewart Baker: “All that makes Snowden’s claim about being able to wiretap anyone extremely unlikely—and certainly not demonstrated by the latest disclosures, despite Glenn Greenwald’s claims to the contrary.”
These documents demonstrate that Snowden is probably correct. In these documents, NSA agents target all sorts of random Americans.
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Daniel Rutter • December 26, 2014 6:42 AM
If you can make it past “NSA goes to great lengths to ensure compliance with the Constitution, laws and regulations”, then you have a stronger constitution than me.