Ride the Lightning

NSA's Christmas Eve Surprise: 12 Years of Internal Reports

December 29, 2014

What better time to release reports on the improper surveillance of Americans than Christmas Eve? Most of America is busy with the holidays and the NSA no doubt hoped that its reports would have little media play, which largely proved to be true.

Even Ars Technica didn't get to this story until December 27th.

The NSA released the reports in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union. Several of the reports were previously withheld illegally, and they became the subject of the FOIA lawsuit in 2009.

The documents are heavily redacted, which surprises no one. They include examples of data being e-mailed to unauthorized recipients, data being kept on unsecured computers and sensitive information being sent to the wrong printer.

The bulk of the cases are attributed to human error rather than intentional evasion of the law. Because it is the holiday season, and folks probably didn't want to spend it poring over the documents, this may be a developing story. I am by nature skeptical of anything released on Christmas Eve.

E-mail:    Phone: 703-359-0700
Digital Forensics/Information Security/Information Technology
http://www.senseient.com
http://twitter.com/sharonnelsonesq
www.linkedin.com/in/sharondnelson