NSA Says It Can’t Search Its Own Emails ⇥ arstechnica.com

Justin Elliott, Ars Technica:

I filed a request last week for e-mails between NSA employees and employees of the National Geographic Channel over a specific time period. The TV station had aired a friendly documentary on the NSA and I want to better understand the agency’s public-relations efforts.

A few days after filing the request, Blacker called, asking me to narrow my request since the FOIA office can search e-mails only “person by person,” rather than in bulk. The NSA has more than 30,000 employees.

Surely some of their own emails must have got caught up in the wiretaps and they could simply search those.