Washington, July 12 (RHC),-- Newly disclosed leaks from Edward Snowden show the National Security Agency is far more likely to collect the communications of average users than those of suspects they’re targeting. 

The Washington Post reports that in one collection of intercepted e-mails and messages, nine out of 10 account holders were not the intended foreign targets but ordinary people with no warrants against them.  This is largely due to loose rules that allow agents to capture the data of any user in a suspect’s contact list, chat room history, or e-mail chain. 

According to the report, from these messages, the NSA saved a vast amount of data on non-suspects, including family pictures, love letters and erotic messages.  Nearly half of the messages came from Americans or U.S. residents. 

The disclosure also contradicts a recent transparency report from the Director of National Intelligence, which said more than 89,000 people were targeted by the NSA programs PRISM and Upstream last year.  It is now reported that the actual number appears closer to 900,000.