The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, The Washington Post reported yesterday.
Most of the infractions involve unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign intelligence targets in the United States, both of which are restricted by law and executive order.
In one bizarre incident in 2008, the NSA intercepted a “large number” of calls placed from Washington, DC, when a programming error confused US area code 202 for 20, the international dialing code for Egypt, according to a “quality assurance” review that was not distributed to the NSA’s oversight staff.
The agency’s actions range from significant violations of law to typographical errors, the Post said, citing an internal audit and other top-secret documents provided to it this summer from NSA leaker Edward Snowden.
In one of the documents, agency personnel are instructed to remove details and substitute more generic language in reports to the Justice Department.
In another case, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has authority over some NSA operations, did not learn about a new collection method until it had been in operation for many months. The court ruled it unconstitutional.