to u.s. citizens. after notifying congress, senior intelligence officials say the nsa tried to salvage data, but in the end took a conservative approach, purged three years of collection, upwards of 75 million communications. corrective action breaks down. new technology including filters to exclude data belonging to u.s. citizens, data that can be filtered subject to new restrictions, and nsa can only hold data for two years, no longer five. seer yor intelligence officials answer criticism that nsa oversight and by its own internal checks is inadequate. bret? thank you. something else new tonight, a jaw dropping number of how much of your communications can be intercepted. here is correspondent doug mcelway. reporter: the administration was forced yet again to defend nsa surveillance after today s the wall street journal report that found the agency monitors
e-mail. as one example, a bundled communication can be as simple as opening your personal e-mail account. the screen shows multiple messages. if one of those messages was from a target the nsa was tracking, all your messages would be captured because the nsa didn t have the technical ability to separate the suspect e-mails from e-mails belonging to u.s. citizens. after notifying congress, senior intelligence officials say the nsa tried to salvage data, but in the end took a conservative approach, purged three years of collection, upwards of 75 million communications. corrective action breaks down. new technology including filters to exclude data belonging to u.s. citizens, data that can be filtered subject to new restrictions, and nsa can only hold data for two years, no longer five. seer yor intelligence officials answer criticism that nsa oversight and by its own internal checks is inadequate.