{{Under increasing pressure to justify electronic surveillance programs that at times capture communications of American citizens, the U.S. National Security Agency went to unusual lengths on Friday to insist its activities are lawful and any mistakes largely unintentional.}}
In a sign of how much heat it has taken since former NSA contractor Edward Snowden started disclosing details of highly classified U.S. surveillance programs, the ultra-secretive intelligence agency held a rare conference call with reporters to counter public perceptions that NSA transgressions were willful violations of rules against eavesdropping on Americans.
The NSA’s presentation was an attempt to calm the latest firestorm over documents disclosed by Snowden. The Washington Post late Thursday reported that the NSA had broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since 2008, citing an internal agency audit and other top secret documents.
“These are not willful violations, they are not malicious, these are not people trying to break the law,” John DeLong, NSA director of compliance, told reporters.
NSA employees know their actions are recorded and the agency’s culture is to report any mistakes, he said, repeatedly stressing that “no one at NSA thinks a mistake is OK.”
Snowden, who was granted temporary asylum in Russia this month, gave information about secret NSA programs that collect phone, email and other communications to several media organizations, which published stories about them starting in June.
His disclosures provoked an intense debate over privacy rights versus national security needs in the United States and several other countries, including Great Britain, Germany and Brazil.
The uproar led to a series of rare public comments by normally publicity-shy NSA officials, who have written opinion pieces in the media and repeatedly said transparency was a positive development.
“We’re working on the release of more documents soon,” DeLong said, without elaborating.
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