> I'm not sure you addressed the main point, or admitted that in the reports they disclosed that the NSA did have direct full takes of the data

No, I didn't address, but neither does the linked article - the documents cited state that they can keep encrypted data past 5 years in order to decrypt it. It doesn't say anything about "warrantless bulk collection of encrypted communications". The "warrantless" doesn't make sense in that you don't need a warrant to collect purely foreign communications, and the "bulk" part neither has evidence to back it up nor does it make sense: why would the NSA stored every single piece of encrypted traffic and devote the (expensive) time and energy needed to decrypt it all if they didn't have reason to believe it was of significant value. I'm submitting this comment over HTTPS - there's no reason to store the TCP traffic that accompanies it.

> An alternative is to get a warrant on the 'known terrorists'

They don't need a warrant to collect against foreigners for foreign intelligence purposes; they're not collecting information for use in a criminal indictment.

> This information can be used to investigate Americans without going through normal investigative channels.

Section 702 collection (what I was addressing in my comment and what declan was referring to in his article) can be only be used to target foreigners, not Americans. If there is evidence of them using that legal authority to intentionally target Americans, please do write in to the papers because that's cut and dry illegal.

It seems like you're mixing up the 215 and 702 programs, which collect dramatically different information from completely different groups. 215 is the bulk domestic phone records program - the NSA gets the number called, calling number. date/time, call length and trunk identifier. They don't get the identities behind the phone numbers, locations, etc. 702 is collection against specific foreign targets using US providers - they get the full take on that.

> Perhaps he should have said attorneys?

The relevant part is: "so that appropriate procedures may be established to protect such communications from review or use in any criminal prosecution"

> (It's not all they are doing.)

> You may want to look into what else is being done with the records. Phone and otherwise.

Please enlighten me. My biggest issue with just about all of the reporting that's come out of the Snowden disclosures is that they talk a lot about how the NSA performs collection, but leave out who the who, what and why - often at the same time saying something like "it is unclear whether [or how many] American's communications have been collected". One embarrassing set of articles in particular was the Angry Birds disclosures: the newspapers gawked about how the NSA could be collecting everyone's marital status, incomes, sexual preferences, etc., but it was discovered that the newspapers improperly redacted the documents and the redactions were removed, it turned out that the NSA was using the information to track Al Qaeda in Iraq. I see lots of accusations that the NSA is spying on regular people, but the only disclosures I've seen talking about their targeting are along these lines: http://electrospaces.blogspot.com/2014/09/nsas-strategic-mis...

I've been following this issue closely. To date, I have yet to see any smoking gun showing actual evidence that the NSA is targeting regular Americans or anyone else other than for purposes of gathering foreign intelligence outside the US.