Leaks involving the NSA’s massive surveillance campaign keep on coming, with the latest being that government spooks collected evidence of online sexual activity and visits to pornographic websites as part of a plan to discredit six Muslim “radicalizers”, reports The Huffington Post.

The documents, which were released by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, are a worrying example of “how ‘personal vulnerabilities’ can be indentified via electronic surveillance, and then exploited to undermine a target’s credibility, reputation, and authority,” wrote Glenn Greenwald. The documents detail how the NSA identified six Muslim men deemed to be “prominent, globally resonating foreign radicalizers.” They went on to describe how the NSA had collected evidence of the six individual’s online activities, which “would likely call into question a radicalizer’s devotion to the jihadist cause, leading to the degradation or loss of his authority,” if it were exposed.

According to the Huffington Post, the NSA collected evidence of numerous transgressions through the men’s online activities. These include viewing sexually explicit material online, using sexually explicit language when communicating with young girls, using donations to pay personal expenses, charging exorbitant speaking fees, and using questionable sources and contradictory language. Should this evidence come to light, it’s likely that the persons involved could be accused of online promiscuity, having a “glamorous lifestyle”, and wanting to be famous, states the report.

Discrediting innocent persons?

Some might argue that the NSA’s effort to undermine certain individuals is quite reasonable if they’re considered to be threats to national security. Perhaps, but in the case of the six individuals concerned, not one of them had in fact been accused of committing or planning any terrorist acts – they simply held radical beliefs, but had never acted upon them. In other words, the NSA is taking advantage of its massive surveillance capabilities to spy on and possibly discredit people who’ve done nothing wrong.

This flys in the face of denials from the likes of NSA chief Gen. Keith Alexander, who has consistenly stated that the NSA only investigates those who’re believed to be actively engaged in terrorist plots against the US.

The Huffington Post article explains that none of the six individuals are currently residing in the US, and while one has previously been jailed for hate speech against non-Muslims and another has been convicted or promoting Al-Qaeda propaganda, there’s nothing to suggest any involvement in actual terrorism. What’s more, at least one of the individuals is said to be a US citizen or permanent resident, which means that they’re due protection under the US Constitution.

“This is not the first time we’ve seen States use intimate and private information of an individual who holds views the government doesn’t agree with, and exploit this information to undermine an individual’s message,” Privacy International told Huffington Post.

This revelation leaves a lot of uncertainty over just how far the NSA is willing to go to protect US interests. While the documents show that the NSA discussed this strategy, explaining how they could discredit certain individuals, there’s nothing to suggest the plan became official policy. Simply by discussing what the government could do is not the same as actually doing something, and so there’s no evidence that the NSA did anything wrong.

However, there are some who believe that the NSA should take whatever action is necessary to deter those who are planning terrorist acts:

“If people are engaged in trying to recruit folks to kill Americans and we can discredit them, we ought to,” said Stewart Baker, a Homeland Security official and ex-general counsel for the NSA, to Huffington Post.

The biggest concern is that there’s nothing to suggest that the NSA hasn’t in fact, already approved this plan, or was about to do so. After all, the document is just one year old, and these things take time to put together.

The “what if?” scenario raises some disturbing questions….

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