NSA: We Touch Only 1.6% Of Internet Traffic
Intelligence agency releases new details about the scope and scale of its digital dragnet.
How much Internet traffic is being actively intercepted and reviewed by the National Security Agency (NSA)?
According to newly released details from the NSA, of the estimated 1,826 petabytes of data that flow across the Internet daily, the agency in its foreign intelligence mission touches about 1.6% of that. That was the claim made in a seven-page PDF released Saturday on the NSA's website, which was released to communicate in greater detail the scope and scale of NSA collection, as well as legal basis for that surveillance.
According to the document, the NSA studies only a fraction of the data it intercepts. Notably, of the 1.6% of Internet traffic the NSA touches daily, the agency actively reviews only 0.025%, or about 7,250 GB. "Put another way, if a standard basketball court represented the global communications environment, NSA's total collection would be represented by an area smaller than a dime on that basketball court," the document states.
The newly published overview -- which is "aimed at providing a succinct description of NSA's mission, authorities, oversight and partnerships" -- disclosed that it works with a number of overseas organizations to provide signals intelligence pertaining to terrorists, online attackers and other enemies of the state.
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