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Officials misused US surveillance program, according to documents

(AP) – Government officials for nearly three years accessed data on thousands of domestic phone numbers they shouldn’t have and then misrepresented their actions to a secret spy court to reauthorize the government’s surveillance program, documents released Tuesday show.

The Obama administration had earlier conceded that its surveillance program scooped up more domestic phone calls and emails than authorized. But until Tuesday, the depths of the program’s abuse were unknown.

According to the documents released by the administration, a spy court judge in 2009 was so fed up with the government’s overreaching that he threatened to shutter the surveillance program designed to fight terrorism… […]