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Published December 26, 2014

The National Security Agency has released heavily redacted accounts of its employees violations against Americans privacy after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

Responding to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the agency was required to file the reports with the Intelligence Oversight Board, the Wall Street Journal reports. However, the reports were released publicly Wednesday, covering activities from 2001-2013.

By emphasizing accountability across all levels of the enterprise, and transparently reporting errors and violations to outside oversight authorities, NSA protects privacy and civil liberties while safeguarding the nation and our allies, the agency said in a statement.

The reports show violations including communications from people in the U.S. being inadvertently targeted or collected by the agency. Some of the violations resemble the disclosures of NSA programs by Edward Snowden.

The report cites incidents of poorly constructed data queries that targeted Americans, improper handling of data and information used improperly.

Some incidents showed how a U.S. Army sergeant used an NSA system to target his wife, which led to a reduction in rank and further punishment.

The NSA says the reports involve human error and intentional misuse of the intelligence system.

The agency reaffirmed that appropriate disciplinary or administrative action was taken.

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The National Security Agency released documents on Christmas Eve revealing surveillance activities that may have violated the law for U.S. policy over more than a decade, reports David Lerman at Bloomberg.

Compelled by an ACLU FIOA request, the agency published 12 years of quarterly reports that were created for the Presidents Intelligence Oversight Board between 2001 and mid-2013.

The reports are heavily redacted but include details of intentional and unintentional misuse of the NSAs signals intelligence gathering systems.

The reports detail unauthorized signals intelligence gathering that included data about U.S. citizens, unauthorized personnel using the intelligence gathering systems and abuses of the NSAs spying tools for personal use. NSA signals intelligence includes phone call metadata gathered through the NSAs links to telecommunications companies, as well as much more granular communications scooped up by the agencys electronic spy network. There are also several references to employees failing to complete required refresher training on signals intelligence systems.

In many instances, NSA employees ran poorly constructed or unauthorized queries in the NSA systems, and ended up gathering data on U.S. citizens or unintended targets. In most of these cases the data was then destroyed.

In one case, detailed in the third quarter of 2007, an NSA instructor ran an unauthorized search during a training session:

Lerman also reports on instances of NSA systems misuse that were already publicly known:

Those cases included a member of a U.S. military intelligence unit who violated policy by obtaining the communications of his wife, who was stationed in another country. After a military proceeding, the violator was punished by a reduction in rank, 45 days of extra duty and forfeiture of half of his pay for two months, according to the letter.

In a 2003 case, a civilian employee ordered intelligence collection of the telephone number of his foreign-national girlfriend without an authorized purpose for approximately one month to determine whether she was being faithful to him, according to the letter. The employee retired before an investigation could be completed.

In August, 2013, Judy Woodroff spoke with former NSA analyst Russell Tice who said the agency collects every domestic communication, word for word.

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NSA releases 12 years of damaging oversight reports on Christmas Eve

The National Security Agency may have violated U.S. law for over a decade with the unauthorized surveillance of U.S. citizens'overseas communications, according to new reports on the agency's intelligence collection practices released by the NSA on Wednesday.

The U.S. spy agency released the highly confidential reports in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).According to documents posted on the NSA website on Christmas Eve, the examples of violations include sending data on Americans to unauthorized recipients, storing such data on unprotected computers and retaining them after they were meant to be destroyed, according to Bloomberg.

In general, each NSA report contains similar categories of information, including an overview of recent oversight activities signals intelligence activities affecting certain protected categories; and descriptions of specific incidents which may have been unlawful or contrary to applicable policies, NSA said, on its website.

The reports include a series of quarterly and annual accounts that have been made available to the presidents Intelligence Oversight Board, Bloombergreported, adding that the reports cover the period between the fourth quarter of 2001 and the second quarter of 2013.

In one instance of an unauthorized surveillance practice, in 2012, an NSA analyst searched a U.S. organization in a raw traffic database without formal authorization because the analyst incorrectly believed that he was authorized to query due to a potential threat, according to the fourth-quarterreportfrom 2012. The surveillance found nothing suspicious.

Another report revealed an incident, also in 2012, when an analyst searched her spouses personal telephone directory without his knowledge to obtain names and telephone numbers for targeting. According to the report, the analyst was advised to cease her activities.

The ACLU, which filed the lawsuit to access the NSA reports, claimed that the intelligence information collected by the spy agency was sometimes misused.

The government conducts sweeping surveillance under this authority -- surveillance that increasingly puts Americans data in the hands of the NSA, Patrick C. Toomey, staff attorney with the ACLUs National Security Project, told Bloomberg in an e-mail. Despite that fact, this spying is conducted almost entirely in secret and without legislative or judicial oversight.

Meanwhile, the NSA said that it has multi-layered protections in place to ensure that no further errors occur in intelligence-gathering and retention.

The vast majority of compliance incidents involve unintentional technical or human error. In the very few cases that involve the intentional misuse of a signals intelligence system, a thorough investigation is completed, NSA said in an executive summary. NSA goes to great lengths to ensure compliance with the Constitution, laws and regulations.

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