More Confirmation: NSA Analysts Willfully Abused Surveillance Powers

from the another-day,-another-claim-falls dept

On Monday, we pointed out that (1) it was ridiculous for NSA defenders to argue that the thousands of violations were no problem because they weren't "willful" and (2) that there was an admission by the NSA that there had been "a couple" of willful violations by NSA staff in the past few years. Five days later, Bloomberg appears to have discovered the same quotes we saw on Monday, noting that there had been willful violations:

Some National Security Agency analysts deliberately ignored restrictions on their authority to spy on Americans multiple times in the past decade, contradicting Obama administration officials’ and lawmakers’ statements that no willful violations occurred.

“Over the past decade, very rare instances of willful violations of NSA’s authorities have been found,” the NSA said in a statement to Bloomberg News. “NSA takes very seriously allegations of misconduct, and cooperates fully with any investigations -- responding as appropriate. NSA has zero tolerance for willful violations of the agency’s authorities.”

As far as I can tell, this is the identical quote that we saw from John DeLong of the NSA on Monday. Either way, it's good that the press is finally realizing that, yes, the NSA has admitted to multiple willful violations.

Filed Under: abuses, nsa, nsa surveillance, violations, willfully abused