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In an effort to discredit individuals thought to radicalize others, the NSA monitored the online browsing habits of six targets and took records of their viewing of adult content and pornography. A document from October 2012, obtain by The Huffington Post, says that "radicalizers appear to be particularly vulnerable in the area of authority when their private and public behaviors are not consistent."

The six targets—all of whom are Muslim and none of whom are identified as suspects in terror plots—all are believed to reside outside of the United States although one could be either a citizen or permanent resident.

In addition to analyzing the content of their internet activities, the NSA also examined the targets' contact lists. The NSA accuses two of the targets of promoting al Qaeda propaganda, but states that surveillance of the three English-speakers’ communications revealed that they have "minimal terrorist contacts." In particular, “only seven (1 percent) of the contacts in the study of the three English-speaking radicalizers were characterized in SIGINT as affiliated with an extremist group or a Pakistani militant group. An earlier communications profile of [one of the targets] reveals that 3 of the 213 distinct individuals he was in contact with between 4 August and 2 November 2010 were known or suspected of being associated with terrorism," the document reads.

While the compilation of embarrassing browsing activity is so far limited to these individuals, it does cast uncertainties as to what else the NSA has been collecting. A spokesperson for the agency told HuffPo that there use of a type of monitoring permitted by law should hardly be a surprise.

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