NSA Sweep Of Email Contact Lists Grabs Hundreds Of Millions Of Global Records

Brian Proffitt | ReadWrite | October 15, 2013

Another day, another discovery from the leaked Snowden documents that the U.S. National Security Agency has their hands in yet another privacy cookie jar.

If the government weren't shut down, we could start asking the NSA to pay at least some of our Internet bills, given how intrusive the intelligence agency seems to be.

Today's news, this time from the folks at the Washington Post: the NSA is collecting email contact lists and instant messaging buddy lists from "hundreds of millions" of accounts globally, including accounts that belong to U.S. citizens. This, despite assurances from the Obama administration that Americans would not be involved in such online intelligence gathering.