The U.S. Department of Justice secretly issued two memos in 2012 that permitted the National Security Agency to begin warantless surveillance of Internet traffic on American soil if it was necessary for tracking down cyberattacks that originated from foreign sources, according to a New York Times report today.
However, according to the Times, the NSA also "sought to target hackers even when it could not establish any links to foreign powers."
See the New York Times report for more.