| ACLU | American Civil Liberties Union |
| CALEA | Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act |
| CSTB | Computer Science and Telecommunications Board |
| DEA | Drug Enforcement Agency |
| DNS | Domain Name System |
| FBI | Federal Bureau of Investigation |
| HRDAG | Human Rights Data Analysis Group |
| IoT | Internet of Things |
| ISIL/ISIS | Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant/Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, otherwise referred to as the Islamic State |
| NSA | National Security Agency |
| ODNI | Office of the Director of National Intelligence |
| SSL | Secure Sockets Layer |
| TBI | Tennessee Bureau of Investigation |
| TLS | Transport Layer Security |
| TSD-3600 | Telephone Secure Device-3600 |
| VEP | Vulnerabilities Equities Process |