In 2005, a National Security Agency employee was given his first day of access to the United States’ SIGINT (signals intelligence) capability. So what did he do with his vast powers?
According to a newly published letter (PDF) by the NSA Office of the Inspector General (OIG), “he queried six e-mail addresses belonging to a former girlfriend, a U.S. person, without authorization.”
An internal NSA audit four days later revealed this violation. His punishment?
“A reduction in grade, 45 days restriction, 45 days of extra duty, and half pay for two months. It was recommended that the subject not be given a security clearance.”
This is just one of 12 instances of NSA employees unquestionably abusing America’s surveillance system, publicly revealed for the first time on Thursday.
Last month, the Wall Street Journal introduced the world to an internal term that NSA analysts have come up with to describe the act of spying on one’s ex-partner: LOVEINT. The word is reminiscent of existing spycraft parlance, like HUMINT (human intelligence) or SIGINT (signals intelligence). (LOVEINT also spawned endless Twitter jokes.)
Needless to say, many Americans, including Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) were not exactly thrilled with the idea that NSA employees could put America’s vast surveillance capability to use spying on ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends. So he immediately fired off a letter to the NSA OIG. On Thursday, the OIG’s September 11 response to Sen. Grassley was published on the senator’s website.
Dr. George Ellard, the Inspector General, writes that the NSA currently has “two open investigations into alleged misuse of SIGINT and is reviewing one allegation for possible investigation.”
In each of these cases, NSA employees were either docked in pay or punished administratively, or they left the agency before any further action could be taken. No criminal charges were brought against any of these subjects. Worse still, most of these instances appeared to largely be as a result of reactive reporting by the “subject” (the person who conducted the LOVEINT abuse), and not as a result of proactive internal measures at the NSA itself.
Won’t the real “shady characters” please stand up?
Another case in 2011 describes a situation where a female NSA employee “tasked the telephone number of her foreign-national boyfriends and other foreign nationals and that she reviewed the resultant collection,” adding that “[she] asserted that it was her practice to enter foreign national phone numbers she obtained in social settings into the SIGINT system to ensure that she was not talking to ‘shady characters’ and to help [the] mission.”
Any disciplinary measures could not be imposed, as she resigned first.
Probably the most egregious example in the entire five-page letter is a 2003 incident in which “a female foreign national employed by the U.S. government, with whom the subject was having sexual relations, told another government employee that she suspected that he was listening to her telephone calls. The other employee reported the incident.”
Turns out, her suspicions were right, and then some:
The investigation determined that, from approximately 1998 to 2003, the employee tasked nine telephone numbers of female foreign nationals, without a valid foreign intelligence purposes, and listened to collected phone conversations while assigned to foreign locations. The subject conducted call chaining on one of the numbers and tasked the resultant numbers. He also incidentally collected the communications of a U.S. person on two occasions.
And what became of this fine NSA employee?
“The subject was suspended without pay pending the outcome of the investigation and resigned before discipline had been proposed.”
We contacted the office of Sen. Grassley to find out if he was satisfied by the OIG’s responses and if he plans on taking further action, but we have not received a response.