Journalist Glenn Greenwald said it was easy for low-level analysts and contractors at the National Security Agency to access Americans' private telephone calls and emails as recently revealed by leaker Edward Snowden.
Speaking Sunday on ABC's "This Week," Greenwald, who broke the story weeks ago about Snowden's leaks on the NSA data collection program, said, "The NSA has trillions of telephone calls and emails in their databases that they've collected over the last several years.
"These programs are very simple screens, like the ones that supermarket clerks or shipping and receiving clerks use, where all an analyst has to do is enter an email address or an IP address."
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Once someone enters the system, Greenwald said, calls can be listened to and emails read.
"Everything that the NSA has stored ... alerts them to any further activity that people connected to that email address or that IP address do in the future," Greenwald added.
"It’s all done with no need to go to a court, with no need to even get supervisor approval on the part of the analyst."
Snowden said in a story last month reported by Greenwald in
The Guardian that he had access to the phone calls and emails of American citizens.
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