Edward Snowden on surveillance: what the evidence says · JRE #1368
SUBJECT: SURVEILLANCE
Not a true/false call. Every claim is logged with its sources; read the exhibits below.
this foreign intelligence surveillance court that the government says authorized these programs 15 different times was overruled by the first open courts to look at the program. These are federal courts here, right, that said, no, actually, these programs are unlawful. They're likely unconstitutional. When you start looking at the facts, you see, even within the context of the very loose restrictions and laws that apply to the NSA and surveillance, they say they broke their own laws, you know, 2,776 times in a single year.
What the evidence says 01 / RECORD
The 2,776 figure is accurate: a May 2012 internal NSA audit, leaked by Snowden and first reported by the Washington Post in August 2013, found 2,776 incidents of unauthorized surveillance or overcollection in the preceding 12 months. Contemporaneous reporting noted most incidents stemmed from operator or system errors (e.g., typographical mistakes) rather than deliberate illegal spying, a distinction the quote's framing glosses over. The broader claim about courts is also supported: the secret FISA court had repeatedly approved the bulk-collection program, and in May 2015 the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the first federal appeals court to rule on the program's legality, found it exceeded what the Patriot Act authorized. This matches Snowden's characterization of a secret court's authorization being overturned by the first open federal court to review it. The specific figure of "15 different times" for FISA court authorizations could not be independently confirmed against an allowlisted source.