Secret documents provided by Edward Snowden show the spy agency intercepts hundreds of thousands of address books every day from email or instant messaging accounts in its effort to find possible links to terrorism or other criminal activity, it was reported Monday. During a typical day, the NSA collected more than 440,000 email address books, the report said.
WATCH OUT, the U.S. government could be tapping your instant message account for information.
Thanks to more revelations from leaker Edward Snowden, a new report shows the National Security Agency has been mining millions of personal email account and chat contact lists, The Washington Post reported Monday.
The spy agency has collected countless contacts from accounts on Yahoo, Gmail, Facebook and Hotmail, and scores of buddy lists from live chat services, in an attempt to thwart terrorism and other criminal activity.
The Big Brother tactics were revealed by secret documents provided by Snowden, the ex-NSA contractor who fled the U.S. and now lives in Russia, senior intelligence officials confirmed.
The agency analyzes the contacts to link digital connections among foreign intelligence targets, and is not interested in personal data dumps from ordinary Americans, a spokesman for the national intelligence director’s office told The Washington Post.
But while mapping information overseas, and compiling contacts at a rate of about 250 million a year, government workers got their hands on lists of Web accounts for millions of American users.
Spokesman Shawn Turner said the agency is supposed to “minimize the acquisition, use and dissemination” of info that identifies U.S. citizens or permanent residents. On a typical day last year, the NSA’s Special Source Operations branch collected over 440,000 email address books, according to The Washington Post.
With News Wire Services
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