WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration has given up more of its surveillance secrets, acknowledging that it was ordered to stop collecting thousands of Internet communications from Americans with no connection to terrorism. It says it was an unintended consequence when it gathered bundles of Internet traffic connected to terror suspects.
One of the documents that intelligence officials released Wednesday came because a court ordered the National Security Agency to do so. But it's also part of the administration's response to the leaks by analyst-turned-fugitive Edward Snowden, who revealed that NSA spying programs went further and gathered millions more communications than most Americans realized.
The NSA declassified three secret court opinions showing how it revealed to the court that one of its surveillance programs may have collected and stored thousands of American emails.
