NSA Intercepted Children’s Letters To Santa [View all]

[Ichingcarpenter]

FORT MEADE, MD – The National Security Agency routinely intercepts children’s letters to Santa, internal agency documents have revealed.
The documents describe an operation known as MILK COOKIES, based out of Fort Meade and run in conjunction with the U.S. Postal Service. COOKIES is the interception of the letters while MILK feeds them through a complex series of algorithms to spot any hidden messages.
Agency director Gen. Keith Alexander had previously testified to Congress in 2011 that the NSA would occasionally collect letters addressed to Santa, but insisted that it was totally accidental and that no one was actually reading or storing them.
The NSA is prohibited from directly monitoring American citizens under both Executive Order 12333 and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. However, because the letters are addressed to the North Pole, which falls outside of U.S. territory, they are considered potential foreign intelligence signals which the NSA is authorized to intercept.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a former senior administration official defended the program: ”We’re only looking for any unusual presents, like children who ask Santa for pressure cookers, large amounts of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, hyzadrine rocket fuel, things like that. I mean a six-year old with a hammer is bad enough; just try to imagine that same six-year old with a truck bomb.”



Read more: http://www.duffelblog.com/2013/12/nsa-letters-to-santa/#ixzz2oC0OIfYa