Bob Graham, former Florida Senator said the Senate intelligence briefings were about new technology. I think we are looking at the NY Times revelations with our old fashion impressions from the 70’s movie “The Conversation”. A human being bugging the bad guys [or good guys] and not getting warrants to continue the eavesdropping.
Instead, Huge super computers and storage banks all over the world are hooked up to ALL electronic spectrums digital and analogue. Called Echelon; the complex programs decrypt and sort out messages by associations and key words. The computers cannot distinguish American origins or destination until after the fact. Since the computer programs associate messages together, 72 hours could easily pass before decrypted flagged signals are eyeballed by real human beings. There aren’t any warrants because all the old messages are all ready in the system and any future associated messages are just routed directly to whomever is interested. All electronic messages are being bugged.