The wiretapping agents at the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) plugged their device not only into overseas American aid workers, journalists and members of the arms forces but also shared some “interesting scoops” among themselves such as phone sex conversations, Chosun Ilbo reported Saturday citing the ABC News.
Two former NSA employees, David Faulk and Adrienne Kinne, told ABC News that contatrary to the American government’s insistence that the government’s intercepts were directed only at known al-Qaeda suspects, private conversations of military officers, journalists and Red Cross workers were also among the people whose calls were monitored and transcribed.
Jay Rockefeller, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called this is “an extreme act of violation of human rights,” adding his Senate panel is looking into the NSA eavesdropping report. Rockefeller also said that he had requested President George W. Bush to hand over relevant information on this matter.
The Washington Post reported that the incident is partly attributable to the Bush administration’s terrorism policy, which on the account of collecting information on terrorists loosened the wiretapping law, leading to the violation of privacy of ordinary citizens.
CIA Director Michael Hayden, former head of the NSA, had argued that the wiretapping measure was necessary to protect the country against the terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda and it excludes private conversations of the American citizens.
An official with the U.S. spy agency said that anyone employed to serve the government should assume that their phones are wiretapped as part of the security measures. However, Jonathan Turley, law professor at Georgetown University said it didn’t mean that people agreed to be wiretapped on their phone sex and even their phone conversations to be circulated.