The unexpected Christmas gift: NSA reveals 12 years of illegal activity in new report

The National Security Agency (NSA) just released a very heavily edited account of the numerous violations its employees committed against American citizens in the years following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

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LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The report covers the agency's activities from 2001 to 2013, and was issued following a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed against the agency. The NSA had to file reports with the Intelligence Oversight Board, however these reports were also released publicly on December 24.

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"By emphasizing accountability across all levels of the enterprise, and transparently reporting errors and violations to outside oversight authorities, NSA protects privacy and civil liberties while safeguarding the nation and our allies," an NSA statement released in conjunction with the report said.

The report revealed that communications from people within the U.S. were being "inadvertently targeted or collected" by the agency.

The report also revealed that because of "poorly constructed" data query programs, Americans had their information collected and handled inappropriately.

One such case showed the flagrant abuse that ran rampant through the NSA. An Army sergeant used the NSA system to spy on his wife, though he was punished with reduction in rank.

While the NSA did say they took the "appropriate disciplinary or administrative action," they acknowledged that human error and intentional abuse of the system were the cause of many of these flaws, nor did they provide any guarantee that the system was no longer open to these abuses in the future.

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