U.S. intelligence community investigates 375 leaks since 2011

An internal report of the U.S. intelligence community shows that the government is investigating hundreds of cases of leaks by members of various intelligence agencies, U.S. media reported on Monday.

The semi-annual report by the Office of the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community comes as disclosures of classified phone and internet surveillance programs have sparked controversy in the country.

The report said investigators are reviewing 375 cases of " unauthorized disclosures" by members of the various intelligence agencies, and the leaks of sensitive or classified information could go back to November 2011.

However, the investigations predate the recent disclosures of intelligence surveillance programs by the National Security Agency (NSA), reported the Hill.

Two classified National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance programs, one collecting U.S. phone records and the other mining internet data, were revealed last week after leaks from 29-year- old defense contractor Edward Snowden.

President Barack Obama and other officials of the U.S. intelligence community have stressed that the congressional, executive and judicial levels provided oversight over these surveillance programs.

Obama also insisted that the tracking of internet activity had not applied to U.S. citizens or people living in the country.

According to the Guardian and the Washington Post reports last Thursday, the NSA and the FBI had been secretly tapping directly into the central servers of nine U.S. internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person's movements and contacts over time.