2013 FLASHBACK: Two Dems Warn NSA Violations Just ‘Tip of a Larger Iceberg.’

A pair of civil-liberties Democrats whom the White House tried to appease in a closed-door meeting warned today that fresh reports of thousands of privacy violations by the National Security Agency are just the “tip of a larger iceberg.”

On Thursday, the Washington Post published its report of a May 2012 audit leaked by former contractor Edward Snowden that found 2,776 violations over the previous year of executive orders and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act provisions governing spying on Americans or foreign targets in the U.S. These included both computer and operator errors.

Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.) have been some of President Obama’s harshest critics — within his party and outside — on domestic spying. They were among allies and foes of the NSA programs summoned by Obama to the Oval Office at the beginning of the month as he hoped to calm his detractors before promising new, vague reforms.

It’s now apparent that the spying on political enemies continued unabated, and in fact accelerated in the last days of the Obama Administration.