>an average of one case of intentional abuse per year has been documented in internal reports [...] the number of reported deliberate abuses is small

According to the WSJ, these were caught mostly through self-reporting by the people who did them [1]. Relying on self-reporting doesn't seem like such a great safeguard, and it appears likely that there would be more non-self-reported cases than self-reported.

[1] http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/08/23/nsa-officers-someti...

>An anonymous official attributed the abuses to “overzealous NSA employees or contractors” eager to prevent another 9/11 attack.

I find this incredibly funny. "Sure we broke the law, but it's because we love our country too much"

NPR coverage of the same:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/08/23/214917391/nsa...

So we go from '0' to 'some'. Let's hope that's not a trend. Human nature being what it is I have a hard time believing discipline is so tight there that only one person per year on average transcended their authority.

First it's "never abused their power". Then it's "never abused their power intentionally" (those tens of thousands of spying "errors" every year don't count apparently), then it's "only a few" intentional ones. Then it's a lot more - "but you should trust them anyway".

I wonder what Obama will say at his next conference on this. I think we can predict pretty well what he's going to say, though. He'll tell us exactly what we want to hear (how civil liberties are important for them and so on), but without mentioning any specific ways to stop the abuses, or if he does, the people he will put in charge to fix it will be all insiders who were leading those same abuses before, too.

But nobody should trust Obama until Clapper and Alexander get fired. Heck, I'd say impeach Obama, too, and send a very strong message to every future president that will assume the role this century that spying on own citizens, and even abusive spying against any and all foreign citizens (even abroad, spying should be done on specific targets, not everyone en mass) - that such spying is not acceptable.

Being a little generous to say "Wrong", I believe it was a blatant lie.

I have no problem believing that there is a mutually beneficial don't ask don't tell policy going on between the president and the internal workings of the NSA.