> they look at the number, if the number is foreign, it's good. If there's an error and the number is US (for example, a clerical error) the query results are IMMEDIATELY destroyed, and this event is reported to subcommittees and FISA court.
They've also said they are not allowed to monitor U.S. citizens living abroad. What if they have a number outside the U.S. How do they detect that a number belongs to a U.S. citizen or resident? If a non-U.S. person has a phone number from the U.S. but they are not a citizen/resident and are not inside the U.S., is that protected or not?
> The metadata is collected, destroyed after 5 years, but cannot be queried except under the stringent circumstances.
That seems to contradict what they also said today, that no court order is required to query the database and it just requires reasonable suspicion on the part of the analyst.
> Alexander said that 20 analysts and 2 managers (himself and Inglis) are the only people with access to this database.
Is that technical access or legal access? In other words, are there technical limitations preventing anyone but those 22 people from accessing the data, or is everyone else just not supposed to? If they have sysadmins managing the databases, surely they have access too, as Snowden and Binney have both said?
They've also said they are not allowed to monitor U.S. citizens living abroad. What if they have a number outside the U.S. How do they detect that a number belongs to a U.S. citizen or resident? If a non-U.S. person has a phone number from the U.S. but they are not a citizen/resident and are not inside the U.S., is that protected or not?
> The metadata is collected, destroyed after 5 years, but cannot be queried except under the stringent circumstances.
That seems to contradict what they also said today, that no court order is required to query the database and it just requires reasonable suspicion on the part of the analyst.
> Alexander said that 20 analysts and 2 managers (himself and Inglis) are the only people with access to this database.
Is that technical access or legal access? In other words, are there technical limitations preventing anyone but those 22 people from accessing the data, or is everyone else just not supposed to? If they have sysadmins managing the databases, surely they have access too, as Snowden and Binney have both said?