Fallout from leaker Edward Snowden’s revelations continue to plague the National Security Agency and the Obama Administration. According to documents provided by Snowden to the Washington Post’s Barton Gellman, the NSA has overstepped its legal authority thousands of times since 2008.Â
“The NSA audit obtained by The Post, dated May 2012, counted 2,776 incidents in the preceding 12 months of unauthorized collection, storage, access to or distribution of legally protected communications,” Gellman writes.
The audit contained information on “unauthorized collection, storage, [and] access to or distribution of legally protected communications” between May 2011 and May 2012. Gellman writes that while most violations were “unintended,” adding that “many involved failures of due diligence or violations of standard operating procedure.”
Gellman joins The Takeaway to discuss the Post’s latest NSA revelations, and the consequences for the Obama Administration and American citizens.
There may be more oversight on people reporting on the NSA and government surveillance than there is on the government watchers themselves.
Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian reporter who published Edward Snowden’s leaks, found that his domestic partner David Miranda was held for nearly nine hours under British anti-terror legislation at Heathrow airport on Sunday. Mr. Miranda’s cellphone, laptops and memory sticks were confiscated.
David Anderson is the U.K’s Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation. He joins the program to discuss British anti-terror laws and why Miranda was held.
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