The American Spectator : Is the NSA Lying About Data Mining?
Assuming all of this is correct, it appears General Alexander misrepresented the the truth when he denied that the NSA was mining telephony metadata. He might reply that he was using specific definitions of “data mining” and “query” which fall outside the scope of this discussion. As this Electronic Frontier Foundation page discusses, the NSA has a very specific definition of the term “collection” which is more akin to the common meaning of “analysis.” And as previously noted, it has also stretched the meaning of “relevance” such that virtually any piece of intelligence is germane to an investigation.
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