According to an internal audit, the NSA broke privacy rules “thousands of times” since 2008. The audit was given to the Washington Post by NSA leaker Edward Snowden during the summer. The newspaper declared the audit listed 2,776 incidents of “unauthorized collection, storage, access to or distribution of legally protected communications.”
However, the Washington Post reported, “Most were unintended. Many involved failures of due diligence or violations of standard operating procedure. The most serious incidents included a violation of a court order and unauthorized use of data about more than 3,000 Americans and green-card holders.” The audit also showed many surveillance incidents including Americans and foreign targets were unauthorized. The audit was created in May 2012 and held information about the previous year.
