NSA targeting of foreign hackers does not infringe on anyone’s privacy

[Commentary] What better way to celebrate the two-year anniversary of Edward Snowden’s first leak about the National Security Agency’s operations than to have the latest story from his cache of stolen government documents create another misleading public understanding of an NSA program, this one aimed at catching foreign hackers.

As with the initial Snowden-generated story about the NSA’s collection and storage of American telephone metadata (every call, date, time and duration) the newest story does not report any violation of law or misuse of the data that the NSA collected — only the implication that the program could be abused. There also is no evidence, only the implication, that like the metadata program, the hacker program may incidentally sweep up Americans’ private information and that data could be misused. Moreover, key lawmakers and the court that oversees such intelligence operations were aware of the program and how it worked.