The U.S. National Security Agency spied on people it identified as influential Islamic "radicalizers" in an attempt to expose discrepancies between their public personas and private behavior. The agency did so in an attempt to subvert the radicalizers' authority, according to a Huffington Post report published late Tuesday.
Drawing from documents leaked by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, the report includes "viewing sexually explicit material online" as one of the tactics NSA used to debase its targets.
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"Some of the vulnerabilities exposed would likely call into question a radicalizer's devotion to the jihadist cause, leading to the degradation or loss of his authority ," reads one document.
Aside from viewing online pornography, the documents list other suspect activities that may be used against these targets, including overcharging for public speaking appearances, being "attracted to fame," using donations for personal purposes and "using sexually explicit persuasive language when communicating with inexperienced girls."
Two of the documents show a spreadsheet of six radicalizers targeted in this surveillance, with categories including name, authority, argument, country with the highest resonance and vulnerabilities.
The Huffington Post withheld the names of the six radicalizers and their locations because it could not verify their alleged activities.
In the documents, NSA refers to the surveillance as a "SigInt assessment," referring to signals intelligence. The agency states that the "SigInt information is from primary sources with direct access."
Shawn Turner, director of public affairs for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, emailed the following statement to the Huffington Post: "Without discussing specific individuals, it should not be surprising that the US Government uses all of the lawful tools at our disposal to impede the efforts of valid terrorist targets who seek to harm the nation and radicalize others to violence."
Glenn Greenwald is listed as the lead author on the Huffington Post report. While working for The Guardian, Greenwald was responsible for many of the revelations on the scope of NSA surveillance based on documents leaked by Snowden, including the initial scoop in June.
Greenwald has since left the Guardian to start a new journalistic venture funded by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.
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