NSA employees spied on their lovers using eavesdropping programme
NSA employees spied on their lovers using eavesdropping
programme
Staff working at America's National Security Agency – the
eavesdropping unit that was revealed to have spied on millions of people – have
used the technology to spy on their lovers.
By Harriet Alexander
11:18AM BST 24 Aug 2013
The employees even had a code name for the practice –
"Love-int" – meaning the gathering of intelligence on their partners.
Dianne Feinstein, a senator who chairs the Senate
intelligence committee, said the NSA told her committee about a set of
"isolated cases" that have occurred about once a year for the last 10
years. The spying was not within the US, and was carried out when one of the
lovers was abroad.
One employee was disciplined for using the NSA's
resources to track a former spouse, the Associated Press said.
Last week it was disclosed that the NSA had broken
privacy rules on nearly 3,000 occasions over a one-year period.
John DeLong, NSA chief compliance officer, said that
those errors were mainly unintentional, but that there have been "a
couple" of wilful violations in the past decade.
"When we make mistakes, we detect, we correct and we
report," said Mr DeLong.
The NSA issued a statement on Friday saying: "NSA
has zero tolerance for wilful violations of the agency's authorities" and
responds "as appropriate."
Mrs Feinstein said: "Clearly, any case of
noncompliance is unacceptable, but these small numbers of cases do not change
my view that NSA takes significant care to prevent any abuses and that there is
a substantial oversight system in place.
"When errors are identified, they are reported and
corrected."
The extent of American spying on its citizens and
foreigners through the NSA and its "Prism" programme were revealed by
Edward Snowden, a whistleblower, who fled to Russia where he has claimed
temporary asylum.
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