Lawmakers probe wilful abuses of power by NSA analysts

The leaders of US congressional intelligence committees said they want to probe the intentional abuses of surveillance authority committed by some National Security Agency analysts in the past decade.

"I am reviewing each of these incidents in detail," Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat and chairman of the Senate intelligence panel, said in a statement, after the NSA confirmed to Bloomberg News on Friday that some analysts deliberately ignored restrictions on their authority to spy on Americans.

"Any case of noncompliance is unacceptable, but these small numbers of cases do not change my view that NSA takes significant care to prevent any abuses and that there is a substantial oversight system in place," Feinstein said.

The incidents, chronicled by the NSA's inspector general, provide additional evidence that US intelligence agencies sometimes have violated the legal and administrative restrictions on domestic spying, and may add to the pressure to bolster laws that govern intelligence activities.

Republican Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan, chairman of the House intelligence committee, is reviewing the cases of intentional misconduct in detail, his spokeswoman, Susan Phalen, said in a statement.

There were "approximately a dozen" cases in the past 10 years that "involved improper behaviour on the part of individual employees," Phalen said.

Most of the cases didn't involve the communications of Americans, Feinstein said.

Wilful violations
Republican Representative Justin Amash of Michigan is seeking details about the incidents, his spokesman, Will Adams, said in a statement. Amash proposed a measure last month that would have denied the NSA funding to collect telephone records on millions of Americans. It fell seven votes short of passing.

"Over the past decade, very rare instances of wilful violations of NSA's authorities have been found," the agency said in a statement to Bloomberg News. "NSA takes very seriously allegations of misconduct, and cooperates fully with any investigations - responding as appropriate. NSA has zero tolerance for wilful violations of the agency's authorities."

The compilation of wilful violations, while limited, contradicts repeated assertions that no deliberate abuses occurred.

Army General Keith Alexander, director of the NSA, said during a conference in New York on August 8 that "no one has wilfully or knowingly disobeyed the law or tried to invade your civil liberties or privacy."

'Misleading statements'
President Barack Obama told CNN in an interview broadcast yesterday he is confident no one at the NSA is "trying to abuse this program or listen in on people's email."

"There's a pattern of the administration making misleading statements about its surveillance activities," Jameel Jaffer, a deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a phone interview. "The government tells us one thing, and another thing is true."

A secret court that oversees the NSA said in a declassified legal opinion from October 2011 the agency substantially misrepresented the scope of surveillance operations three times in less than three years.