Most of the conversations and emails being monitored and intercepted by the National Security Agency are harmless Internet users and not those of dangerous terrorists, according to a published report.

Late Saturday night, The Washington Post reported that most messages intercepted by the NSA contained personal details about people's lives and private photos. Some of the messages were valuable for authorities, but the majority of the information obtained was marked as useless by the NSA.

About 160,000 intercepted email and instant message conversations and 7,900 similar documents were intercepted from more than 11,000 online users were given to The Washington Post by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The messages were from the 2009-2012 time period, most of President Obama's first term.

The Washington Post reported that almost half of the materials obtained had names, email addresses and other information that identified U.S. citizens or residents. The NSA tried to conceal these personal identifiers (there were over 65,000 instances) to try to protect personal privacy, but The Washington Post discovered over 900 email addresses that could be linked to U.S. citizens or residents.

The Post reports that the NSA's tracking efforts have had some successes. In 2011, the NSA's intel helped capture a Pakistan-based bomb builder. In 2002, their efforts helped capture a suspect in the bombing of a nightclub in Bali. The Post was asked not to reveal any other of the NSA's current efforts because the NSA didn't want to compromise ongoing investigations.

The NSA unveiled a "secret overseas nuclear project" and other valuable information, according to The Washington Post.

Snowden provided the information to The Washington Post. The NSA was involved in domestic operations that was approved by Congress in 2008.

Currently. law says that the NSA may only "target" foreign nationals located overseas. If they are able to obtain a special warrant from a special surveillance court, they can monitor others, The Washington Post said. But, there's "incidental collection" that is unavoidable from third parties, The Washington Post reported.

Some of Snowden's data provided to The Washington Post shows that even if an innocent Internet user is in the same chatroom or on the same server as a "target" they are investigated as well.