NSA employees were spying on their significant others by using the NSA’s  “eavesdropping programme”

“Eavesdropping unit” of NSA has used the program to spy on their wives and husbands who have been living abroad. They called the operation LOVEINT and it was only used when the spouse was living abroad.

Telegraph.co.uk reports Dianne Feinstein, a senator who chairs the Senate intelligence committee, said the NSA told her committee about a set of "isolated cases" that have occurred about once a year for the last 10 years. The spying was not within the US, and was carried out when one of the lovers was abroad.

One employee was disciplined for using the NSA's resources to track a former spouse, the Associated Press said.

WSJ reports NSA Chief Compliance Officer** John DeLong** emphasized in a conference call with reporters last week that those errors were unintentional. He did say that there have been “a couple” of willful violations in the past decade

However it’s not just one off a case but 3000 such case have been reported in the last year. One can imagine if just 3000 cases were reported then almost an equal number of cases would have been not reported.

Edward Snowden, who has sought asylum in Russia, had revealed the extent of NSA spying on its citizens.