# Upstream Collection **The [[FISA Section 702]] collection stream that copies communications as they cross the internet backbone, with the help of the telecom carriers that run it.** Where [[PRISM]] asks a company for a target's account, Upstream scans the traffic itself for a target's selectors. The [[Snowden Revelations]] showed it running at major carrier facilities, an arrangement with roots in the [[Stellar Wind]] era (see [[NSA and the Telecommunications Industry]]). ## "About" collection, and its end Upstream originally collected not only communications *to or from* a target, but also communications that merely mentioned a target's selector — "about" collection. Because the scanning works on bundles of internet traffic, this pulled in purely domestic messages between Americans who were not targets. The [[FISA Court]] had found problems with this collection since at least 2011. On **April 28, 2017**, the [[NSA]] announced it would stop "about" collection, citing "inadvertent compliance incidents" involving U.S.-person queries discovered during the court's annual review, and said it would delete "the vast majority" of upstream internet communications collected previously. Upstream collection of communications to or from targets continues. ## Upstream outside 702 Not all backbone collection runs under 702. Cable taps overseas — including joint programs with Britain's [[GCHQ]] on links between tech companies' data centers — run under [[Executive Order 12333]], with no court involvement (see [[NSA-Tech Company Relationships]]). ## KB Significance The end of "about" collection is one of the few times a 702 practice actually stopped — and it stopped through the agency's own decision under court pressure, not through legislation. It fits the vault's pattern that reform of the [[Surveillance State]] arrives as internal policy that a later administration can reverse. ## See Also - [[FISA Section 702]] · [[PRISM]] · [[NSA and the Telecommunications Industry]] · [[Executive Order 12333]] · [[FISA Section 702 Renewal 2026]]