Sneaky NSA Releases Report on Its Illegal ‘Intelligence’ Collection on Christmas Eve

21st Century Wire says…

More and more, it seems like this agency believes it is completely above the law.

Proving it’s true nature as an out-of-control, hi-tech clandestine modern equivalent to the East German Stasi – the NSA quietly, and very cynically released a  heavily-redacted report on its illegal intelligence surveillance against US citizens – routinely violating US laws and policy for over a decade….

The Switch

The NSA, responding to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union, released a series of required quarterly and annual reports to the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board that cover the period from the fourth quarter of 2001 to the second quarter of 2013.

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.

Other unauthorized cases were a matter of human error, not intentional misconduct.

Last year, an analyst “mistakenly requested” surveillance “of his own personal identifier instead of the selector associated with a foreign intelligence target,” according to another report.

Unauthorized Surveillance

In 2012, an analyst conducted surveillance “on a U.S. organization in a raw traffic database without formal authorization because the analyst incorrectly believed that he was authorized to query due to a potential threat,” according to the fourth-quarter report from 2012. The surveillance yielded nothing.

The NSA’s intensified communications surveillance programs initiated after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington unleashed an international uproar after they were disclosed in classified documents leaked by fugitive former contractor Edward Snowden last year.

No New Legislation

Congress has considered but not passed new legislation to curb the NSA’s collection of bulk telephone calling and other electronic data.

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, created by lawmakers under post-Sept. 11 anti-terrorism laws, issued a 238-page report in January urging the abolition of the bulk collection of Americans’ phone records. The five-member board said the program has provided only “minimal” help in thwarting terrorist attacks…

Continue this story at The Switch 

READ MORE NSA NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire NSA Files

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Source: http://21stcenturywire.com/2014/12/26/sneaky-nsa-releases-report-on-its-illegal-intelligence-collection-on-christmas-eve/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sneaky-nsa-releases-report-on-its-illegal-intelligence-collection-on-christmas-ev