NSA collecting 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'

Classified documents reveal more alarming global surveillance methods

National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden has revealed the existence of XKeyscore, a surveillance tool that, the software's documentation claims, can survey "nearly everything a typical user does on the internet".

The revelations follows admissions during the testimony of senior security officials at the US Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday, during which they released previously classified documents on the collection of phone records and other personal data of the users of global communiucation networks.

But the new documents released by Edward Snowden and published in The Guardian demonstrate the all-encompassing and global scope of the NSA's surveillance activities.

Last month, Snowden claimed in an interview that he could, from his desk, "wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email".

In response, Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee claimed that Snowden was "lying" and that such action was "impossible".

The official documents released today, though, state that XKeyscore is the NSA's "widest reaching" intelligence system, which can look at "nearly everything a typical user does on the internet". It extends to email contents, URLs of visited websites, and metadata of web searches.

"Real time" interception, say the documents, is also possible, meaning the NSA can monitor a single user's internet activity live.

A particular December 2012 document refers to an XKeyscore capability that "searches within bodies of emails, webpages and documents", with even the "To, From, CC, BCC lines" and the 'Contact Us' pages on websites" being included.

A 2007 document states that 850 billion "call events" - meaning telephony records - were stored in NSA databases at that time, as well as nearly 150 billion internet records. The document states that between one billion and two billion records were being added on a daily basis at this time.

This massive amount of data does mean, however, that records can only be kept for days at a time before being replaced with new material. Data itself tends to be stored for three to five days, while metadata is stored for 30 days.

Records kept are stated as "communications that transit the United States and communications that terminate in the United States", meaning the gathering of international data is an absolute certainty.

Whistleblower Snowden remains in Russia, though, where he is currently seeking asylum. News emerged earlier today that the FBI approached Snowden's father, Lon, to try and persuade him to fly to Moscow and encourage his son to return to the US.

Snowden's father, though, has warned him against returning. "If he comes back to the United States, he is going to be treated horribly. He is going to be thrown into a hole," said Lon Snowden.