NSA authorized to spy on all nations

Newly leaked top-secret documents show the US National Security Agency has been authorized to spy on all but four countries worldwide.

The United States has only had broad no-spying arrangements with Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, in a group known collectively with the United States as the Five Eyes.

A classified 2010 legal certification, approved by Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, permitted the NSA to intercept through US companies not just the communications of its overseas targets but any communications about its targets as well, The Washington Post reported on Monday.

The NSA was also allowed to target institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the International Atomic Energy Agency, the report said.

“These documents show both the potential scope of the government’s surveillance activities and the exceedingly modest role the court plays in overseeing them,” said Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, who had the documents described to him.

The certification was signed by the attorney general and the director of national intelligence. It’s one of three approved annually by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, pursuant to the law.

The other two relate to counterterrorism and counterproliferation, according to the documents.

The new documents shed light on the super spy agency’s most significant surveillance programs: collection of the e-mails and phone calls of foreign targets under Section 702 of the 2008 FISA Amendments Act.

The new revelations are part of a trove of documents that former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked last year, shaking the American intelligence establishment to its core.