The National Security Agency sought Friday to defend its operation of sensitive spy programs in the wake of revelations it had violated its own privacy rules on nearly 3,000 occasions.

The NSA's director of compliance, John DeLong, repeatedly said in a conference call with reporters that the 2,776 violations reflected no willful effort to violate Americans' privacy. "NSA has a zero-tolerance policy for willful misconduct," Mr. DeLong said. "None of the incidents that were in the document released were willful."

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