However, on the slide detailing why NSA would be 'interested in HTTP' it is explained that this is 'because nearly everything a typical user does on the Internet uses HTTP'. The documents claim that 300 'terrorists' have been caught using data extracted from XKeyscore. Some of these justifications are available as drop down menus. 'At some sites, the amount of data we receive per day (20+ terabytes) can only be stored for as little as 24 hours,' the slides explain.ĭon't worry though, the agents have to put in a 'justification' for every search query. Should you be afraid of the NSA's web monitoring? Gary Marshall puts his tinfoil hat on.What's more, XKeyscore doesn't just track the fact that emails have been sent and received - it also allows agents to search and read email body text and the to, from, CC and BCC lines.īecause of the vast amounts of data being assembled by the database, actual content that XKeyscore collects is stored for three to five days while metadata is stored for 30. The email addresses and phone numbers used and searched for by XKeyscore can be skimmed from people's address books or received emails' signatures, not necessarily just those of the people the NSA is actively monitoring.

Xkeyscore search tool