US National Security Agency (NSA) Data Breach (2005)

In 2006, the Office of Oversight and Compliance within NSA's Signals Intelligence Directorate informed NSA OIG that, between 2005 and 2006 the subject had without authorization queried in two SIGINT systems the telephone numbers of two foreign nationals, one of whom as his girlfriend. On one occasion, the subject performed a text query of his own name in a SIGINT system. The OIG investigation found that the subject queried his girlfriend's telephone number on many occasions and her name on two. He testified that he received only one "hit" from the queries on the girlfriend. Another number he queried, that of a foreign national language instructor, returned "insignificant information". The subject claimed that he queried his name to see if anyone was discussing his travel and the telephone numbers to ensure that there were no security problems.