US spy agencies snooped on the emails of five high-profile Muslim Americans in an effort to identify security threats, documents leaked by fugitive ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden show. <br /> <br />The targets include a lawyer, professor and a political operative, according to a report published in the Intercept. <br /> <br />The FBI and NSA said they only spied on Americans when they had probable cause. <br /> <br />"The National Security Agency and FBI have covertly monitored the emails of prominent Muslim-Americans, under secretive procedures intended to target terrorists and foreign spies," according to The Intercept report. <br /> <br />Those allegedly spied on include: <br /> <br />It is entirely false that US intelligence agencies conduct electronic surveillance of political, religious or activist figures solely because they disagree with public policies or criticize the government” <br /> <br />The NSA and Department of Justice <br />Faisal Gill, a Republican Party operative and former Department of Homeland Security employee <br /> <br />Asim Ghafoor, a lawyer who represented clients in terrorism-related cases <br /> <br />Hooshang Amirahmadi, an Iranian-American professor at Rutgers University <br /> <br />Agha Saeed, a former political science professor at California State University <br /> <br />Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations <br /> <br />According to the report - the result of a three-month investigation using classified documents obtained. All five individuals have denied involvement in terrorist activities.
