Electronic surveillance

NSA watchdog details privacy concerns and moves to protect whistleblowers

The National Security Agency's open source intelligence collection process, which gathers publicly available information from the internet, has "an increased risk of jeopardizing the civil liberties and privacy of [US persons] and compromising classified information," concluded the agency's top watchdog in its first public report for Congress.

The NSA watchdog criticized facets of the digital spy agency's "Emerging Open Source Activities Branch," which analyzes the information collected. Areas of concern highlighted included insufficient "guidance and training" for analysts to adequately protect Americans' personal data. The IG did not go into further detail about specific violations.

But the agency is also prioritizing whistleblower protection in new ways, the report revealed, highlighting progress for the secretive spy unit after several high-profile whistleblowers criticized internal protections for those who report wrongdoing.