Report: The NSA can access 75 percent of all U.S. internet traffic

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal — based on what the paper says are interviews with current and former security officials — the National Security Agency’s surveillance program can access much more data than the agency has admitted publicly to date: as much as 75 percent of all U.S. internet traffic. The data comes from major internet nodes across the country, and most of the leading telecom companies help gather the information, the paper said late Tuesday.

The WSJ report said that the various programs in place with each telecom provider have their own code names — including Blarney, Fairview, Oakstar, Lithium and Stormbrew. Although some of these programs have been mentioned in the NSA documents that were leaked by Edward Snowden to the Guardian and Washington Post earlier this year, the Journal said that its reporting had uncovered more details about the extent of the programs.