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USA: NSA SURVEILLANCE: In NSA-intercepted data, those not targeted far outnumber the foreigners who are - Files provided by Snowden show extent to which ordinary Web users are caught in the net

07 July 2014

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"Ordinary Internet users, American and non-American alike, far outnumber legally targeted foreigners in the communications intercepted by the National Security Agency from U.S. digital networks, according to a four-month investigation by The Washington Post.

Nine of 10 account holders found in a large cache of intercepted conversations, which former NSA contractor Edward Snowden provided in full to The Post, were not the intended surveillance targets but were caught in a net the agency had cast for somebody else.

Many ... files, described as useless by the analysts but nonetheless retained, have a startlingly intimate, even voyeuristic quality. They tell stories of love and heartbreak, illicit sexual liaisons, mental-health crises, political and religious conversions, financial anxieties and disappointed hopes. The daily lives of more than 10,000 account holders who were not targeted are catalogued and recorded nevertheless."

See the article: In NSA-intercepted data, those not targeted far outnumber the foreigners who are - Files provided by Snowden show extent to which ordinary Web users are caught in the net (Washinton Post, link)

See also: Germans Demand U.S. Response to Spy Allegation (New York Times, link) and: German-US relations strained by new spy scandal (euobserver, link)

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