Just read this new york article and noticed this,the article is quite lengthy so I'll only post an abridged version.
Mapping Message Trails
In May 2009, analysts at the agency learned that
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was
to make a rare trip to Kurdistan Province in the
country’s mountainous northwest. The agency
immediately organized a high-tech espionage
mission, part of a continuing project focused on
Ayatollah Khamenei called Operation Dreadnought.
Working closely with the National Geospatial-
Intelligence Agency, which handles satellite
photography, as well as G.C.H.Q., the N.S.A. team
studied the Iranian leader’s entourage, its vehicles
and its weaponry from satellites, and intercepted air
traffic messages as planes and helicopters took off
and landed.
They heard Ayatollah Khamenei’s aides fretting
about finding a crane to load an ambulance and fire
truck onto trucks for the journey. They listened as
he addressed a crowd, segregated by gender, in a
soccer field.
They studied Iranian air defense radar stations and
recorded the travelers’ rich communications trail,
including Iranian satellite coordinates collected by
an N.S.A. program called Ghosthunter. The point
was not so much to catch the Iranian leader’s words,
but to gather the data for blanket eavesdropping on
Iran in the event of a crisis.
This “communications fingerprinting,” as a
document called it, is the key to what the N.S.A.
does. It allows the agency’s computers to scan the
stream of international communications and pluck
out messages tied to the supreme leader. In a crisis
— say, a showdown over Iran’s nuclear program —
the ability to tap into the communications of leaders,
generals and scientists might give a crucial
advantage.
On a more modest scale, the same kind of effort,
what N.S.A. calls “Sigint development,” was
captured in a document the agency obtained in 2009
from Somalia — whether from a human source or an
electronic break-in was not noted. It contained email
addresses and other contact details for 117 selected
customers of a Mogadishu Internet service,
Globalsom.
While most on the list were Somali officials or
citizens, presumably including some suspected of
militancy, the document also included emails for a
United Nations political officer in Mogadishu and a
local representative for the charity World Vision,
among other international institutions. All, it
appeared, were considered fair game for monitoring.
This huge investment in collection is driven by
pressure from the agency’s “customers,” in
government jargon, not only at the White House,
Pentagon, F.B.I. and C.I.A., but also spread across
the Departments of State and Energy, Homeland
Security and Commerce, and the United States
Trade Representative.


By many accounts, the agency provides more than
half of the intelligence nuggets delivered to the
White House early each morning in the President’s
Daily Brief — a measure of success for American
spies. (One document boasts that listening in on
Nigerian State Security had provided items for the
briefing “nearly two dozen” times.) In every
international crisis, American policy makers look to
the N.S.A. for inside information.


mobile.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/world/no-morsel-too-minuscule-for-all-consuming-nsa.html?from=global.home

thought they already had nigerians doing that for them.

I wonder what benefit it is to spy on Nigeria's state security. Did they see anything interesting?

berem: I wonder what benefit it is to spy on Nigeria's state security. Did they see anything interesting?

I wonder too but since it provided part of the US president's daily intelligence brief nearly two dozen times,it must have been pretty interesting, prolly all about Boko Haram and stuff like that

They even spied on my parents

emk4lif:
I wonder too but since it provided part of the US president's daily intelligence brief nearly two dozen times,it must have been pretty interesting, prolly all about Boko Haram and stuff like that

Nigeria been africa's second largest economy and it's top oil producer, there is always a lot to spy on. In my own opinion, I believe the US spies on nigeria just as much as it does on many top tier countries.

berem: I wonder what benefit it is to spy on Nigeria's state security. Did they see anything interesting?

Apparently nothing much, just the drunken antics of a fisherman with a lady's bottom in an armoured BMW at the ministry of aviation

This is self-induced idiocy. Nigeria does not have secret apparatus and will never know how handle it if ever given one.

DerideGull: This is self-induced idiocy. Nigeria does not have secret apparatus and will never know how handle it if ever given one.

Ur head is dia my bro...I wonder wat any reasonable person ll spy on Nigeria for. Dis is jst a fake story to deceive nigerians to think our nation haz any importance

DerideGull: This is self-induced idiocy. Nigeria does not have secret apparatus and will never know how handle it if ever given one.

Your stupidity makes me laff, i'm not even going to answer you, because its people like you that have block head, when you try to get things through thier head, they still stay stubborn, thinking they are correct, so believe what you want to beleive.
he that is born in ignorance, and chooses to live in ignorance, dies in ignorance, i hope you don't die in ignorance my brother

If NSA could spy on Merkel, this should be a forgone discussion!

.

GeneralJ:

Your stupidity makes me laff, i'm not even going to answer you, because its people like you that have block head, when you try to get things through thier head, they still stay stubborn, thinking they are correct, so believe what you want to beleive.
he that is born in ignorance, and chooses to live in ignorance, dies in ignorance, i hope you don't die in ignorance my brother

Bros you dey mind them.
Sometimes I sit down and wonder what awaits this country with the kind of ignorant and directionless youth we are producing? What do they teach in universities these days , home video and nolly wood studies or Azonto practicals?
The new York times wrote that intercepted messages from our State Security (most definitely SSS), formed part of over 20 daily briefings to the US president and those are the stewpid reactions they can spew.
God help us.

tpia@:
thought they already had nigerians doing that for them.

Exactly.

Abeg, that just waste of time.

They spy on a failed country.

Given the fact that Nigeria the largest trade partner of america in SSA is gradually shifting to the east and the security problems in the country,i am not surprised.
Most Nigerians are 5th columns anyway.
It shouldn't be hard getting Nigerian spies from america to betray their own country.

juman: Abeg, that just waste of time.

They spy on a failed country.

To you it's a failed country but to them it's not.
When will your country be good enough for?
How have you been useful to this country?