NSA forced to release more than a decade’s worth of documents

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 FOIA request, the agency published 12 years of quarterly reports that were created for the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board between 2001 and mid-2013.

The National Security Agency went all out on a Christmas gift this year: a decade’s worth of declassified documents on the unauthorized surveillance of Americans. Turns out it’s the NSA that sees you when you’re sleeping, and knows when you’re awake. The documents were released Wednesday afternoon, in response to an ACLU lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act. They cover the agency’s activities from mid-2001 through early 2013 — and they are heavily redacted. Even so, the reports detail numerous “errors” over the years as NSA analysts searched through its information databases and accessed the communications of Americans, which is prohibited.