Acquiring data from a new targetThis slide describes what happens when an NSA analyst "tasks" the PRISM system for information about a new surveillance target. The request to add a new target is passed automatically to a supervisor who reviews the "selectors," or search terms. The supervisor must endorse the analyst's "reasonable belief," defined as 51 percent confidence, that the specified target is a foreign national who is overseas at the time of collection.
The FBI uses government equipment on private company property to retrieve matching information froma participating company, such as Microsoft or Yahoo and pass it without further review to the NSA. For stored communications, but not for live surveillance, the FBI consults its own databases to make sure the selectors do not match known Americans. This is where data enters NSA systems, described more fully on the next slide.
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