From Statista.com, a revealing glimpse of the growing number of Americans picked up by U.S. national security agencies work.
A report released on Tuesday found that there has been a huge rise in the number of identities of U.S. persons revealed by the National Security Agency (NSA). While the process is known as “unmasking”, the term “U.S. persons” takes into account not just the identities of citizens and permanent residents but also corporations, all of which were mentioned in intelligence reports. When the NSA distributes a report to other government agencies (e.g. the CIA or FBI), identities are blacked out or masked. In order to better understand the intelligence, agencies can ask the NSA to “unmask” them or lift the lid on their identities.
