| CDR | call detail records |
| CIA | Central Intelligence Agency |
| FISA | Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act |
| FISC | Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court |
| http | Hypertext Transport Protocol |
| IARPA | Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity |
| IC | Intelligence Community |
| IP | Internet Protocol |
| ISP | Internet Service Provider |
| IT | information technology |
| MAC | Message Authentication Code |
| NSA | National Security Agency |
| ODNI | Office of the Director of National Intelligence |
| PPD | Presidential Policy Directive |
| RAS | reasonable and articulable suspicion |
| SIGINT | signals intelligence |
| SMTP | Simple Mail Transport Protocol |
| SPAR | Security and Privacy Assurance Research |
| SQL | Structured Query Language |
| TCB | trusted computing base |
| TCP | Transmission Control Protocol |
| USB | Universal Serial Bus |
| USSID | U.S. Signals Intelligence Directive |
| VoIP | Voice over Internet Protocol |
| WMD | weapons of mass destruction |