NSA Leaks Scandal: Released Records Show NSA Abuse of Power, Spying on US Citizens

Documents released Tuesday show that United States NSA officials accessed information to thousands of phone records that they didn't have legal authority to inspect, according to a report by the Miami Herald.

Judge Reggie B. Walton ruled in March 2009 that, of a list of 17,835 phone numbers were working with, only 1,935 met the legal standards necessary for surveillance. The surveillance program is intended to be exclusively used as an intelligence-gathering tool to prevent and intercept terrorist plots.

According to government officials, the legal mix-up in the NSA's program relates to the complexity of the program, not to overreaching motivations on the part of the intelligence community. Civil liberties activists have openly condemned the program - which came to light earlier this year, via leaks to the Guardian by former NSA employee Edward Snowden - noting the FBI's politically-charged surveillance of civil rights leaders in the 1960s as a classic abuse of power.

The 2009 ruling released Tuesday came from President Obama in response to a lawsuit from a civil liberties group; at the time of the ruling, Walton said the NSA's misunderstandings about the restrictions of their program "strains credulity", and ordered the agency to do an "end-to-end" review of its processes and practices.

Meanwhile, a report by the Guardian today says that the NSA regularly shares raw information collected through their PRISM program with Israeli intelligence. According to that report, which is based on leaks by Snowden, Israeli intelligence officers are allowed to keep data files containing information about private citizens of the United States for up to one year.

The language surrounding US government officials is notably stricter, with Israelis ordered to "destroy upon recognition" any communications "that is either to or from an official of the US Government."

It is unclear whether any such communications were shared with Israeli; in 2009, however, the New York Times reported on a failed NSA attempt to wiretap a member of Congress without court approval.