Ordinary Internet users, American and non-American alike, far outnumber legally targeted foreigners in the communications intercepted by the National Security Agency from U.S. digital networks, according to a four-month investigation by The Washington Post.
Nine of 10 account holders found in a large cache of intercepted conversations, which former NSA contractor Edward Snowden provided in full to The Post, were not the intended surveillance targets but were caught in a net the agency had cast for somebody else.
Many of them were Americans. Nearly half of the surveillance files, a strikingly high proportion, contained names, e-mail addresses or other details that the NSA marked as belonging to U.S. citizens or residents. NSA analysts masked, or “minimized,” more than 65,000 such references to protect Americans’ privacy, but The Post found nearly 900 additional e-mail addresses, unmasked in the files, that could be strongly linked to U.S. citizens or U.S.residents.
The surveillance files highlight a policy dilemma that has been aired only abstractly in public. There are discoveries of considerable intelligence value in the intercepted messages — and collateral harm to privacy on a scale that the Obama administration has not been willing to address.
More at WaPo
This is part of the left’s secret files on anyone and everyone who might someday try to run for office opposing one of their own.
Remember Reid claiming Romney never paid taxes?
Remember Obama’s secret knowledge of his Ill. state senator’s sealed divorce details?
Multiply that by thousands.
In D’Sousa’s movie, America, it was pointed out that we all inadvertently commit THREE FELONIES a DAY.
Well, just try to run for office against someone who can detail the very worst-sounding ones out of that haul!