The Guardian has detailed new revelations from NSA-leaker Edward Snowden about a program known as XKeyscore that has been described as the agency’s “widest-ranging” tool for online data collection.

PowerPoint training materials obtained by The Guardian show how analysts could use the system to mine sprawling agency databases consisting of a vast reservoir of data. At least 41 billion records were collected and stored in a single 30-day period in 2012, according to the report, which also says XKeyscore collects more than 20 terabytes of information daily, including emails, chats, social media interactions, and even browsing histories—all in real-time.

For example, with little more than an email address, the agency would be able to search “every email address seen in a session by both username and domain,” “every phone number seen in a session (eg address book entries or signature block)”, and “the webmail and chat activity to include username, buddy list, machine specific cookies etc.”

The PowerPoint documents also reveal that agents would have the ability to search through any individual’s email as long as they had an address. This would include “searches within bodies of emails, webpages and documents,” including “To, From, CC, BCC lines” and even the “Contact Us” pages on websites.

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