In the latest set of revelations to come from whistleblower Edward Snowden, PRISM’s evil sister is a technology called XKeyscore which allows spooks to rifle through vast databases of email, social media, IRS chats of millions of people and is the National Security Agency’s “widest reaching” system for gathering intelligence online.
In the latest disclosures given by Snowden to The Guardian newspaper, training materials for agents boast XKeyscore is the agency’s widest reaching system for gathering digital network intelligence (DNI) “covering nearly everything a typical user does on the internet incuding content of emails, websites visited and searches, as well as their metadata.”
In a June 10 interview with the newspaper Snowden said: “I, sitting at my desk could wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president if I had a personal email.”
This claim is understood to be vehemently denied by USX government officials who will next week testify before a Senate judiciary committee.
According to the latest set of documents which come from training materials analysts can search by name, telephone, number, IP address, keywords and are not actually limited by the absence of an email address.
Digital spook image via Shutterstock
