This is finally starting to make sense to the "media". A large part of the story was the unfiltered taps, PRISM seems effective at pinpointing the important bits in what used to be an overwhelming stream.
e.g. Get FISA request on someone, gather the data, tap into the big pipes to see what else they are doing.
Does anyone remember this from 2005 ? They retrofitted a submarine (USS Jimmy Carter) to the tune of 1 billion to cable tap under the ocean, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/20/politics/20submarine.html . If they are trying to do that thousands of feet under water ( 7 years ago) imagine what they have on land now.
That 100' extra space has most probably been used to house cable laying equipment, where they can take a cable to the taps and have that real time feed. If they spent $3.2B on that sub, there is no way I'd doubt their willingness to spend tons on using it to lay NSA dedicated optics.
Are you sure the NSA indeed had unfiltered access to data? Several tech companies very specifically and loudly refuted that claim and the Washington Post backed away from some of the initial claims about the level of access and complicity the NSA had.
e.g. Get FISA request on someone, gather the data, tap into the big pipes to see what else they are doing.
Does anyone remember this from 2005 ? They retrofitted a submarine (USS Jimmy Carter) to the tune of 1 billion to cable tap under the ocean, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/20/politics/20submarine.html . If they are trying to do that thousands of feet under water ( 7 years ago) imagine what they have on land now.