India among NSA’s favorite surveillance targets, latest Snowden disclosure reveals

Boundless Informant was primarily used to track and organize internet data (DNI) and telephone metadata (DNR). The program is also used to provide summaries of the information the NSA collects from India and around the world, meaning Boundless Informant likely lays the groundwork for some of the most important intelligence activity carried out by the NSA.

DNI and DNR are then stored in an NSA storage file known as GM-PLACE. Documents seen by The Hindu Times show records from at least 504 DNR and DNI collection sources in India alone.

Boundless Informant was not used to intercept messages or communication. However, it does count and categorize phone calls and internet records in an easy-to-use database that allows the NSA to quickly track individuals.

PRISM, a massive clandestine service used for data mining first disclosed in June 2013, gathered intelligence on “certain specific issues not related to terrorism” from major web services like Facebook, Apple, YouTube, Microsoft and Google, among others.