LOVEINT dominates NSA intentional misuse of surveillance powers

[Image omitted] - Auditors from the National Security Agency say they know of 12 cases of intentional misuses of NSA surveillance powers that have been uncovered since Jan. 1, 2003.

In a September letter sent to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), auditors briefly profile each incident; the majority of them involve personnel spying on a significant other. It's a practice informally dubbed "LOVEINT," out of the same logic that shortens "signals intelligence" to "SIGINT."

For example, a civilian employee in 2003 was found to have surveilled nine telephone numbers belonging to female foreign nationals "without a valid...