The National Security Agency (NSA) and other intelligence agencies have used such terms as “HUMINT” (human intelligence) and “SIGINT” (signals intelligence). In August 2013, the NSA admitted that some employees had improperly used its intelligence tools to check up on personal love interests, such as girlfriends and ex-wives. The NSA term for this was “LOVINT.”
 
A Wall Street Journal blog on August 23, 2013 introduced the term:
 
The practice isn’t frequent — one official estimated a handful of cases in the last decade — but it’s common enough to garner its own spycraft label: LOVEINT.”
     
 
The Wall Street Journal—Washington Wire blog
August 23, 2013, 8:45 PM
NSA Officers Spy on Love Interests
By Siobhan Gorman
WASHINGTON—National Security Agency officers on several occasions have channeled their agency’s enormous eavesdropping power to spy on love interests, U.S. officials said.
 
The practice isn’t frequent — one official estimated a handful of cases in the last decade — but it’s common enough to garner its own spycraft label: LOVEINT.
 
Spy agencies often refer to their various types of intelligence collection with the suffix of “INT,” such as “SIGINT” for collecting signals intelligence, or communications; and “HUMINT” for human intelligence, or spying.
   
Washington (DC) Post—The Switch blog
LOVEINT: When NSA officers use their spying power on love interests
By Andrea Peterson, Published: August 24 at 11:50 am
The National Security Agency admitted in a statement Friday that there have been “very rare” instances of willful violations of agency protocols by agency officers. The Wall Street Journal reports that some of those willful violations involved officials turning their private eyes on love interests: ...
 
LewRochwell.com Blog
SPYINT
Becky Akers at 20:34 pm EDT on August 24, 2013
Hang onto your hats, because this is shocking, but our dedicated public servants at the NSA — you know, the spooks so busy spying on the entire world that they need multiple headquarters at $2 billion a pop — have nonetheless found time to aim their Stalinesque powers at their friends and lovers. Indeed, they do so often enough that the practice has “garner[ed] its own spycraft label: LOVEINT. Spy agencies often refer to their various types of intelligence collection with the suffix of ‘INT,’ such as ‘SIGINT’ for collecting signals intelligence, or communications; and ‘HUMINT’ for human intelligence, or spying.”
 
And if the agency actually admits to this malfeasance, imagine how many more crimes they aren’t confessing.
 
Ace of Spades HQ
August 26, 2013
NSA Agents Spy On Their Ex-Girlfriends and Ex-Boyfriends So Often They Have a Word For It
Yeah I was just saying the other day, without any evidence for it (evidence is for fairies), that what the NSA wasn’t yet copping to was all the spying agents did on their exes, just to keep tabs on them, or to see who they’re dating now.

They do this so often there’s a word for it: LOVEINT, like “HUMINT” (human intelligence) or “COMINT” (communications intelligence).