14 DAY TRIAL // Back in June, Edward Snowden made a claim that politicians immediately dismissed as impossible, namely that he could wiretap anyone, whether it’s a simple citizen, a federal judge, or the President, if he had a personal email.
New information revealed by The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald indicates this fact is indeed possible by using another NSA program called XKeyscore.
Basically, the program allows analysts to filter down enormous agency databases by filling in a simple on-screen form while giving only a broad justification for the search. As Greenwald mentions, this request is not subject to the review of any court or NSA personnel.
One document leaked by Edward Snowden claims the XKeyscore covers nearly everything a typical user does on the Internet. That includes emails, websites visited, searches, and metadata.
The NSA has also found a legal loophole that has been mentioned in the media in the past two months. According to US law, the NSA must obtain an individualized FISA warrant only if the target of the surveillance is a US citizen. However, this does not stop the agency from targeting foreign individuals that US citizens are in contact with.
One presentation slide illustrates exactly how the digital activity is constantly being collected. Plug-ins extract and index metadata into tables – phone numbers, email addresses, logins, and user activity – that can then be submitted to a query.
Analysts can search the database by name, telephone number, IP address, keywords, language, and even the type of browser used.
The purpose of the program is to help analysts search through the collected metadata, but also through other types of content that may have been gathered, including that of a personal nature.
The documents, Greenwald says, also indicate that, according to an assertion, the NSA’s XKeyscore could have helped bring down 300 terrorists.