icreach
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The NSA's search tool is a Google for the world's communications data
If sharing really is caring, then the NSA must care a lot. That's the thrust of a new report from The Intercept that pulled back the curtain on a search system called ICREACH -- launched in 2007, the system allows members of more 20 different US agencies to quickly sift through the communications metadata of both foreigners and citizens on US soil. And the reason for all this? Well, the stated goal was to allow members of these government agencies to identify persons of interest and help agents monitor the activities of "intelligence targets" at home and abroad. Putting aside its ability to crawl through some 850 billion metadata records (and growing), one of ICREACH's greatest assets might be its straightforward interface. It's referred to in internal documentation as being "Google-like" and allows researchers to dig into metadata records by punching in simple "selectors" like email addresses and phone numbers.
