“US intelligence analysts have deliberately broken rules designed to prevent them from spying on Americans, according to an admission by the National Security Agency that undermines fresh insistences from Barack Obama on Friday that all breaches were inadvertent. A report by the NSA’s inspector general is understood to have uncovered a number of examples of analysts choosing to ignore so-called ‘minimisation procedures’ aimed at protecting privacy, according to officials speaking to Bloomberg. These cases flatly contradict assurances given by President Obama that the NSA was only ever acting in good faith.”
