The National Security Agency may have broken U.S. laws for over ten years, International Business Times reported.
The National Security Agency monitors overseas communication of U.S. citizens unauthorized. The revelation was posted on the NSA website in response to the lawsuit filed by American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act.
Several violations were reported including sending information of an American citizen to unauthorized recipient and saving data on unprotected computers, and failing to destroy them.
In 2012, a NSA analyst "searched her spouse's personal telephone directory without his knowledge to obtain names and telephone numbers for targeting," according to Policy. Mic.
Analysts are fond of stalking possible romantic partners and the activity is branded as LOVEINT, which means love intelligence. Some NSA analysts also search for untargeted people's data without authorization.
In another 2012 case, an analyst tracked 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."
The violations were addressed by NSA in a statement that says: "NSA takes even unintentional errors seriously and institutes corrective action, typically involving at a minimum a combination of training and technical measures designed to prevent recurrences. Data incorrectly acquired is almost always deleted, referred to as the "purge" process."
It can be recalled that former NSA contractor Edwards Snowden has revealed similar violations in 2013. Despite reports, the government failed to address the incidents with a new legislation. The program was even criticized for not providing the needed help against terrorist attacks, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Meanwhile, ACLU's National Security Project Staff Attorney, Patrick C. Toomey released a statement about the reported violations.
"The government conducts sweeping surveillance under this authority -- surveillance that increasingly puts Americans' data in the hands of the NSA. Despite that fact, this spying is conducted almost entirely in secret and without legislative or judicial oversight," Toomey said.
The full NSA report can be accessed in the agency's website.
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