NSA Phone-Records Spying Said To Violate Court Orders For Years

The U.S. National Security Agency violated rules on surveillance of telephone records for almost three years and misled a secret court, raising fresh concerns that spy programs lack adequate controls to protect Americans’ privacy.

The latest revelations show NSA spying was broader, violated restrictions on domestic surveillance more often, and may have targeted innocent Americans to a greater degree than previously known. They are contained in documents released yesterday by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in response to privacy groups’ lawsuits.

The agency ran a select list of phone numbers against databases of millions of call records between May 2006 and January 2009 without having reason to suspect some of the numbers’ owners of terrorist ties, according to the records.

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