NSA employee spied on nine women without detection, internal file

[unhappycamper]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/27/nsa-employee-spied-detection-internal-memo



Twelve cases of unauthorised surveillance documented in letter from NSA's inspector general to senator Chuck Grassley

NSA employee spied on nine women without detection, internal file shows
Paul Lewis in Washington
theguardian.com, Friday 27 September 2013 17.08 EDT

A National Security Agency employee was able to secretly intercept the phone calls of nine foreign women for six years without ever being detected by his managers, the agency's internal watchdog has revealed.

The unauthorised abuse of the NSA's surveillance tools only came to light after one of the women, who happened to be a US government employee, told a colleague that she suspected the man – with whom she was having a sexual relationship – was listening to her calls.

The case is among 12 documented in a letter from the NSA's inspector general to a leading member of Congress, who asked for a breakdown of cases in which the agency's powerful surveillance apparatus was deliberately abused by staff. One relates to a member of the US military who, on the first day he gained access to the surveillance system, used it to spy on six email addresses belonging to former girlfriends.

The letter, from Dr George Ellard, only lists cases that were investigated and later "substantiated" by his office. But it raises the possibility that there are many more cases that go undetected. In a quarter of the cases, the NSA only found out about the misconduct after the employee confessed.