In the years following 9/11, a dozen NSA employees were caught trying to use the agency’s vast eavesdropping apparatus to spy on their exes and love interests. The incidents were by no means common, but the agency had coined a name for the practice, nonetheless: LOVEINT, a new twist on SIGINT, “signals intelligence,” and HUMINT, “human intelligence.” In each case, NSA auditors caught the offenders within days, demoted them, cut their pay, and revoked their clearances, which in many cases left them with little choice but to leave the agency. But not one was criminally prosecuted.
