More than a dozen United States National Security Agency workers abused their surveillance abilities in the past 10 years - many of them used advanced technology to keep an eye on their significant others.
According to the agency's internal watchdog, who published the latest findings in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee's Charles Grassley obtained by Reuters, there were 12 cases of "intentional misuse" of the agency's programs since January 1, 2003. Almost all of these instances involved an NSA employee spying on a love interest, referred to in the report as a "loveint."
Both civilian and military NSA workers used their spying capacities to look up email addresses and listen in on phone conversations of their lovers, both in the United States and abroad.
In the letter, NSA Inspector General George Ellard stated that the one NSA employee fessed up to looking at information on his girlfriend's phone "out of curiosity" before he took a polygraph test. But, that "subject retired in 2012 before disciplinary action had been taken."
Another employee used their surveillance abilities to track nine telephone numbers of "female foreign nationals, without a valid foreign intelligence purpose" between 1998 and 2003, Fox News reported. The employee also listened to various phone calls.
A female NSA worker also admitted to tapping a phone number she'd uncovered in her husband's call log "because she suspected that her husband had been unfaithful." This particular employee gave up her spot in the NSA before the agency took disciplinary action.
In another case, a member of the military looked into six email addresses of his former girlfriend the very first day he was granted access to the system.
According to Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union, these few instances of NSA employees abusing their powers are probably just "the tip of the iceberg," adding that the NSA's ability to spy is part of a larger concern.
"If you only focus on instances in which the NSA violated those laws, you're missing the forest for the trees," Jaffer told Reuters. "The bigger concern is not with willful violations of the law, but rather with what the law itself allows."
