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US court approved wider NSA spying

20 November 2013 04:32 (UTC +04:00)

The court had made the decision even after it had found out that the NSA systematically exceeded the limits of a smaller program, newly revealed documents show, according to Reuters.

John Bates, the judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, cited some problems with the first, smaller program.

The agency collected more categories of information than what had been approved by the court and shared data more widely within the electronic surveillance agency than had been permitted.

The data included emails that the NSA spied on in pursuit of foreign intelligence. The agency increased its domestic operations following the Spt. 11, 2011 attacks.

Using the program, the agency searched for Americans who had electronically contacted people who were believed to be linked to people hostile to the US, although analysts queried the database with names that had not found been terrorists or foreign agents, the judge found.

The agency was only allowed to share criminal evidence with police but it was supposed to obscure email addresses to protect the identities of Americans as the Fourth Amendment calls for protections against unlawful searches.

Bates said, "NSA analysts made it a general practice to disseminate to other agencies intelligence reports containing US person information."

Following the outrageous revelations more American citizens than ever are asking the NSA if it is spying on their personal lives. The agency is now facing a staggering number of inquiries with an increase of 988 percent, according to the USA Today.

On June 6, which was the end of the NSA’s third fiscal year and when its confidential documents were disclosed, it received 1,302 requests. In the following three months, about 2,538 people sent their requests to the agency and this continued into the recent months.