NSA Unmasked More U.S. Identities, Likely to Warn Victims of Foreign Spying, New Report Suggests
NSA Unmasked More U.S. Identities, Likely to Warn Victims of Foreign Spying, New Report Suggests by Shane Harris – Washington Post
The National Security Agency revealed the identities of many more citizens, permanent residents and corporations who were mentioned in intelligence reports last year, in a process known as “unmasking” that has been a source of controversy for President Trump and his allies in Congress.
But the statistics, released Tuesday in an annual report, may reflect an increase in the number of people or American businesses being victimized by a foreign government, including through computer hacks, and whose identities were revealed to warn them, a U.S. official said.
In 2018, the NSA, which conducts legally authorized surveillance of communications overseas, unmasked the identities of 16,721 “U.S. persons,” a term that includes corporations, in response to a request from another government agency, according to the report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. That was a more than 7,000-person increase from 2017.
In the course of monitoring communications abroad, the agency routinely picks up the communications of U.S. persons, whose identities are “masked” in reports that are circulated among government agencies, to protect their privacy…
