2026-07-072026-07-07http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/87665A new method of background subtraction is presented which uses the concept of a signal estimator to construct a confidence level which is always conservative and which is never better than e^-s. The new method yields stronger exclusions than the Bayesian method with a flat prior distribution.7 pages, 2 figures, submitted to NIMData Analysis, Statistics and Probabilitytext