The Guardian published NSA training slides for XKeyscore in July 2013. The slides describe the system's architecture, query capabilities, data types, and geographic coverage across more than 150 field sites. The publication is primary-source documentary evidence.

The NSA issued a statement acknowledging XKeyscore's existence while defending its use as subject to 'extensive oversight' and limited to 'valid foreign intelligence purposes.' The public acknowledgement is itself confirmation.

NSA training documents characterised XKeyscore as the agency's 'widest-reaching' signals intelligence analytic system. The claim is consistent with the described global scope (150+ sites) and data types (email, web, chat, search).

Training materials described analysts initiating searches on their own authority without obtaining individual court orders for each query, relying instead on the pre-existing collection authorities and internal policy controls for query justification.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, responding to post-Snowden political pressure, declassified additional information about XKeyscore and related programmes in 2013 and 2014, confirming aspects of the Guardian's reporting.

The NSA and administration officials disputed Snowden's description that an analyst could 'sit at a terminal and listen to anyone,' arguing that legal authorities, minimisation procedures, and technical controls limited collection to foreign targets and prevented domestic abuse.

Training documents indicated that partner intelligence agencies in the Five Eyes alliance — Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the UK — had access to XKeyscore under bilateral intelligence-sharing agreements, extending the system's effective reach beyond US collection alone.

Cryptographers and network security researchers who reviewed the published XKeyscore slides assessed them as technically credible and consistent with the described architecture for indexing and querying large-scale intercepted internet data.

XKeyscore is a database query and analysis tool, not itself a collection program. Its capabilities are bounded by what data underlying collection programs — PRISM, MUSCULAR, upstream collection — have already gathered under their respective legal authorities. An analyst querying XKeyscore cannot access data that hasn't been collected and indexed by these prior programs. This matters because the most alarming descriptions of XKeyscore — implying an analyst can query "everything on the internet" — conflate the search interface with the underlying collection infrastructure. The scope of accessible data depends on collection authorities, FISA-court-approved selectors, and data-retention policies, not solely on XKeyscore's query capabilities.

XKeyscore functions as a federated search tool across data already collected by upstream programmes (PRISM, MUSCULAR, RAMPART-A, cable taps). It does not itself collect data; it indexes and retrieves content within NSA's distributed infrastructure. Snowden's slide deck describing XKeyscore's capabilities therefore reflects the aggregate collection of multiple authorised programmes, not a standalone system with independent collection authority. This distinction matters because legal constraints, oversight mechanisms, and accountability frameworks apply to the upstream collection programmes, not to XKeyscore as a retrieval interface.

The Guardian published NSA training slides for XKeyscore in July 2013. The slides describe the system's architecture, query capabilities, data types, and geographic coverage across more than 150 field sites. The publication is primary-source documentary evidence.

The NSA issued a statement acknowledging XKeyscore's existence while defending its use as subject to 'extensive oversight' and limited to 'valid foreign intelligence purposes.' The public acknowledgement is itself confirmation.

NSA training documents characterised XKeyscore as the agency's 'widest-reaching' signals intelligence analytic system. The claim is consistent with the described global scope (150+ sites) and data types (email, web, chat, search).

Training materials described analysts initiating searches on their own authority without obtaining individual court orders for each query, relying instead on the pre-existing collection authorities and internal policy controls for query justification.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, responding to post-Snowden political pressure, declassified additional information about XKeyscore and related programmes in 2013 and 2014, confirming aspects of the Guardian's reporting.

Training documents indicated that partner intelligence agencies in the Five Eyes alliance — Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the UK — had access to XKeyscore under bilateral intelligence-sharing agreements, extending the system's effective reach beyond US collection alone.

Cryptographers and network security researchers who reviewed the published XKeyscore slides assessed them as technically credible and consistent with the described architecture for indexing and querying large-scale intercepted internet data.

The NSA and administration officials disputed Snowden's description that an analyst could 'sit at a terminal and listen to anyone,' arguing that legal authorities, minimisation procedures, and technical controls limited collection to foreign targets and prevented domestic abuse.

NSA minimization procedures, partially declassified following Snowden and subsequent FOIA litigation, require analysts to document justification for queries involving US-person identifiers and prohibit "about" queries on US persons without specific legal authorization. NSA Inspector General reports document compliance violations — suggesting oversight existed and caught some violations — rather than a system with no controls. FISA Court opinions (some declassified) imposed additional restrictions on how query results involving US persons could be used. These constraints are imperfect and have been violated, but their existence limits the "any analyst can spy on anyone" characterization that XKeyscore presentations, taken out of context, can imply.

NSA's minimisation procedures, reviewed annually by the FISA Court, require that queries of raw collection databases use court-approved "selectors" (identifiers like email addresses or phone numbers) tied to foreign intelligence purposes. NSA Inspector General reports (partially declassified 2013–2014) document instances of non-compliance and the resulting disciplinary processes. While these constraints are imperfect and self-reported, they demonstrate that XKeyscore access is not the unrestricted "wiretap anyone" capability that Snowden's presentation slides, read without operational context, might suggest.

XKeyscore is a database query and analysis tool, not itself a collection program. Its capabilities are bounded by what data underlying collection programs — PRISM, MUSCULAR, upstream collection — have already gathered under their respective legal authorities. An analyst querying XKeyscore cannot access data that hasn't been collected and indexed by these prior programs. This matters because the most alarming descriptions of XKeyscore — implying an analyst can query "everything on the internet" — conflate the search interface with the underlying collection infrastructure. The scope of accessible data depends on collection authorities, FISA-court-approved selectors, and data-retention policies, not solely on XKeyscore's query capabilities.

XKeyscore functions as a federated search tool across data already collected by upstream programmes (PRISM, MUSCULAR, RAMPART-A, cable taps). It does not itself collect data; it indexes and retrieves content within NSA's distributed infrastructure. Snowden's slide deck describing XKeyscore's capabilities therefore reflects the aggregate collection of multiple authorised programmes, not a standalone system with independent collection authority. This distinction matters because legal constraints, oversight mechanisms, and accountability frameworks apply to the upstream collection programmes, not to XKeyscore as a retrieval interface.