NSA Collected Thousands of Emails With No Connection to Terrorism

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is declassifying three secret U.S. court opinions showing how the National Security Agency snooped into as many as 56,000 emails a year over three years and other communications by Americans with no connection to terrorism. The opinions will also show how it revealed the error to the court and how it gathered Internet communications.

The opinions showed that when the NSA reported to the court in 2011, it was collecting thousands of Internet communications by Americans with no connection to terrorism. The court ordered the NSA to find ways to limit what it collects and how long it keeps it.