I wonder what 5/9/14 eyes actually do with the intercepted data? Isn't mere processing of the said data, a gargantuan task? Is this where Palantir comes to play or is it more like of a `cat atlantic_pipeline | grep bomb` thing?
For what us ordinary people know, there are "selectors", something similar in purpose to regular expressions, that can filter out data out of the streams (not just raw IP communications, but also phone call metadata and PIR datasets from airlines) for storage and human inspection. Think of stuff like the phone numbers, names or email addresses of known or suspected "terrorists", drug dealers, organized criminals, or whomever else ends up on one of the flag lists.
EG, we suspect person 1. Now, do a deep search on 1, find associates, do deep search one those.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/oct/28/ns...