 The National Security Agency today released reports on intelligence collection that may have violated the law or U.S. policy over more than a decade, including unauthorized surveillance of Americans’ overseas communications. Here are 5 surprising candidates 
 
 At approximately 1:30 p.m. EST on Christmas Eve, the National Security Agency responded to a Freedom of Information Act request from the American Civil Liberties Union by releasing more than a decade’s worth of incriminating quarterly and annual reports, David Lerman at Bloomberg News reports. In general, each NSA report contains similar categories of information, including an overview of recent oversight activities conducted by NSA’s Office of the Inspector General and the Office of the General Counsel; signals intelligence activities affecting certain protected categories; and descriptions of specific incidents which may have been unlawful or contrary to applicable policies. “Despite that fact, this spying is conducted almost entirely in secret and without legislative or judicial oversight.” 
 
 In an executive summary, the NSA concluded that “[t]he vast majority of compliance incidents involve unintentional technical or human error. Internally, a wide range of NSA offices currently exercise oversight authority, including the Office of the Inspector General, the Office of the General Counsel, the Office of the Director of Compliance, the Office of Civil Liberties and Privacy, and compliance offices embedded within NSA’s mission elements. In the very few cases that involve the intentional misuse of a signals intelligence system, a thorough investigation is completed, the results are reported to the IOB and the Department of Justice as required, and appropriate disciplinary or administrative action is taken (a publicly available letter from NSA’s Inspector General to Senator Charles E. Grassley on September 11, 2013, discussed twelve instances of intentional misuse that occurred between January 1, 2003 and September 11, 2013). ]” 
 
 In an August 2013 statement to Bloomberg News, the NSA claimed that “[o]ver the past decade, very rare instances of willful violations of NSA’s authorities have been found. “NSA takes very seriously allegations of misconduct, and cooperates fully with any investigations -- responding as appropriate.” 
 
 To contact the reporter on this story: David Lerman in Washington at dlerman1@bloomberg.net 
 
 To contact the editors responsible for this story: John Walcott at jwalcott9@bloomberg.net Elizabeth Wasserman
– While many people were wrapping presents and prepping for holiday dinners, the NSA did its own holiday sharing on Christmas Eve: The agency released 10 years' worth of declassified documents, Mashable reports. The materials, which covered a period from the middle of 2001 through early 2013, are the heavily redacted versions of reports presented to the president's Intelligence Oversight Board, made public after an ACLU lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act. And while the executive summary released by the NSA stresses that the agency "goes to great lengths to ensure compliance with the Constitution, laws, and regulations," it also notes certain "compliance incidents" that were the result of "unintentional technical or human error," including mistaken investigations into the wrong targets and ill-trained analysts who conducted overly broad searches. "The government conducts sweeping surveillance ... that increasingly puts Americans' data in the hands of the NSA," ACLU attorney Patrick Toomey told Bloomberg in an email. “Despite that ... this spying is conducted almost entirely in secret and without legislative or judicial oversight." And not every "error" has been accidental: The NSA has previously admitted that there have been "rare instances of willful violations," including an NSA analyst who used her access to pry into her spouse's telephone directory, Raw Story notes. Other no-nos revealed by the documents include data on Americans sent via email to unauthorized parties, stored on unsecured computers, and kept after its destroy-by date, Bloomberg notes. What it all means? More checks and balances are needed from all government branches, says Toomey. (The NSA might not be able to spy on you if you have a new iPhone.)