Z:gnu-www-ja-surveillance-vs-democracy--b3d57e-The state's surveillance staff/en

The state's surveillance staff will misuse the data for personal reasons too. Some NSA agents used U.S. surveillance systems to track their lovers&mdash;past, present, or wished-for&mdash;in a practice called &ldquo;LOVEINT.&rdquo; The NSA says it has caught and punished this a few times; we don't know how many other times it wasn't caught. But these events shouldn't surprise us, because police have long used their access to driver's license records to track down someone attractive, a practice known as &ldquo;running a plate for a date.&rdquo;