Vocativ notes that Glesson’s ruling provided some of the clearest testimony to date about how the PRISM program works:

„In PRISM collection, the government identifies the user accounts it wants to monitor and sends a ‘selector’—a specific communications facility, such as a target’s email address or telephone number—to the relevant communications service provider. A government directive then compels the communications service provider to give it communications sent to or from that selector. This type of surveillance, which intercepts ‘to/from’ communications, can result in the interception of communications with U.S. persons if the target happens to communicate with such a person.”