NSA Officers Sometimes Spy on Love Interests

[jct74]

NSA Officers Sometimes Spy on Love Interests

By Siobhan Gorman
August 23, 2013, 8:45 PM

WASHINGTON—National Security Agency officers on several occasions have channeled their agency’s enormous eavesdropping power to spy on love interests, U.S. officials said.

The practice isn’t frequent — one official estimated a handful of cases in the last decade — but it’s common enough to garner its own spycraft label: LOVEINT.

Spy agencies often refer to their various types of intelligence collection with the suffix of “INT,” such as “SIGINT” for collecting signals intelligence, or communications; and “HUMINT” for human intelligence, or spying.

The “LOVEINT” examples constitute most episodes of willful misconduct by NSA employees, officials said.

In the wake of revelations last week that NSA had violated privacy rules on nearly 3,000 occasions in a one-year period, NSA Chief Compliance Officer John DeLong emphasized in a conference call with reporters last week that those errors were unintentional. He did say that there have been “a couple” of willful violations in the past decade. He said he didn’t have the exact figures at the moment.

NSA said in a statement Friday that there have been “very rare” instances of willful violations of any kind in the past decade, and none have violated key surveillance laws. “NSA has zero tolerance for willful violations of the agency’s authorities” and responds “as appropriate.”

...

read more:
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/08/23/nsa-officers-sometimes-spy-on-love-interests/

[jct74]

Mike Masnick from TechDirt to put this new revelation in context:


Much more troubling is that it appears that the NSA only told its oversight committee in the Senate about all of this a few days ago:


The Senate Intelligence Committee was briefed this week on the willful violations by the NSA's inspector general's office, as first reported by Bloomberg.

"The committee has learned that in isolated cases over the past decade, a very small number of NSA personnel have violated NSA procedures — in roughly one case per year," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who chairs the committee, said in a statement Friday.

Of course, this is the same Dianne Feinstein who, exactly a week ago, said the following:


As I have said previously, the committee has never identified an instance in which the NSA has intentionally abused its authority to conduct surveillance for inappropriate purposes.

Yeah. Because apparently the NSA chose not to tell the committee until a few days later, despite it happening for years.

And, of course, they release this all on a Friday night, hoping that it'll avoid the news cycle...

In the meantime, the NSA just made Senator Feinstein look like a complete fool. She's been its strongest defender in Congress for years, and has stood up for it time and time again, despite all of this questionable activity. Then, last week, it lets her tell lies about it without telling her beforehand that there had been such abuses. At this point, it's abundantly clear that Feinstein's "oversight" of the NSA is a joke. She's either incompetent or lying. Either way, it appears that the NSA is running circles around her, and isn't subject to any real Congressional oversight. At some point, you'd think that maybe she'd stop defending it and actually start doing her job when it comes to oversight. You'd think the fact that it let her make a complete fool of herself by claiming there had been no intentional abuses should make Feinstein realize that the NSA situation is out of control. But, tragically, this seems unlikely. Even her statement seems to want to minimize the seriousness of the fact that she -- the person in charge of oversight -- was completely kept in the dark about very serious intentional abuses. Senator Feinstein just got hung out to dry by the NSA. You'd think she'd stop going to bat for it and its lies.

Either way, we've now gone from General Keith Alexander and Feinstein claiming "no abuses," to them saying no "intentional" abuses, to this latest admission of plenty of intentional abuses, including spying on lovers. Perhaps, instead of lying, it's time for the NSA to come clean and to get some real oversight.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130823/18432024301/nsa-admits-okay-okay-there-have-been-bunch-intentional-abuses-including-spying-loved-ones.shtml

[pcosmar]

The spy who loved me.

Not what Ian Fleming had in mind.

[enhanced_deficit]

read more:
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/08/23/nsa-officers-sometimes-spy-on-love-interests/


Congress should pass legislation that bars pupms from blackmailing/harassing/horsetrading Congress members, political leaders, journalists by using LUVINT in haystack about their spouses/mistresses/Misterers etc.


On a different note, did Trump have any luvint on First SWC's wife when these rumoprs made news?

http://global.christianpost.com/news/obama-divorce-papers-revealed-by-donald-trump-at-noon-wednesday-83845/



LOVEINT.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxxajLWwzqY)Petraeus scandal: 'love pentagon' widens to include general John ... (http://www.theguardian.com/world/richard-adams-blog/2012/nov/13/petraeus-broadwell-allen-scandal-live)
www.theguardian.com ›Nov 13, 2012 - The 'love pentagon' involving David Petraeus and Paula Broadwell widens to include top US general John Allen and FBI.



If he was outed by haystack, why then?

[MoneyWhereMyMouthIs2]

Congress should pass legislation that bars...


any data collection on americans for any reason.

[HOLLYWOOD]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsAqVvlR5DQ

[Sola_Fide]

What a bunch of liars.

If the government ever admits to any abuse, multiply the abuse about 1000 times to understand the true depth of the abuse.

[twomp]

The committee has learned that in isolated cases over the past decade, a very small number of NSA personnel have violated NSA procedures — in roughly one case per year," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who chairs the committee, said in a statement Friday.

Oh so it's only once per year? Oh well why didn't you just say so! If it's only once per year, then I guess it's okay for you to listen or read the communications of everyone in the fking country!!

[Snew]

bunch of creeps