Snowden disclosures

The 2013 publication of classified documents disclosed by Edward Snowden revealed extensive U.S. and allied intelligence surveillance programs and sparked worldwide debate about privacy, security, and government oversight.

Connect

PRISM (surveillance program): A U.S. National Security Agency program that collected communications data from technology companies under legal authority. The disclosures showed how the NSA obtained stored communications through this program.
Edward Snowden: A former U.S. intelligence contractor who disclosed classified surveillance documents to journalists in 2013. He copied the documents and arranged for journalists to report on them.
USA FREEDOM Act: A 2015 U.S. law that ended the NSA’s bulk collection of domestic telephone metadata under Section 215 and created a targeted system. Congress enacted it after the disclosures intensified scrutiny of bulk phone-record collection.
Mass surveillance: The systematic collection or monitoring of information about large populations rather than selected individuals. The disclosures made large-scale, population-wide collection the central issue.
Upstream collection: A National Security Agency method for collecting internet communications as they travel across network infrastructure. The documents described collection from internet backbone links, alongside provider-based collection.
Glenn Greenwald: An American journalist who reported on the Snowden documents for The Guardian. Snowden contacted him to help publish evidence of surveillance programs.
ACLU v. Clapper: A U.S. court case challenging the NSA’s bulk collection of domestic telephone records. The lawsuit directly contested a program exposed by the disclosures.
Targeted surveillance: Monitoring directed at specific people, accounts, or devices based on individualized selection. It contrasts with programs that collected data about broad populations.
XKeyscore: An NSA search system used by analysts to query collected internet data. Leaked training materials described how analysts searched broad stores of intercepted data.
Laura Poitras: An American documentary filmmaker and journalist who helped document Snowden’s disclosures. She recorded Snowden’s first face-to-face interviews in Hong Kong.