NSA has a DATABASE of CONTENT

[Jarla]

5. What if these "content repositories" only contain content from people they've previously "targeted"?

In context, this is what it says:

(S) NSA Technical Analysis of the Facility*

(S) NSA may also apply technical analysis concerning the facility from which it intends to acquire foreign intelligence information to assist it in making deterrninations concerning the location of the person at whom NSA intends to direct surveillance. For example, NSA may examine the following types of information:

(S) For telephone numbers:

(a) Identify the country code of the telephone number, and determine what it indicates about the person's location.

(b) Review commercially available and NSA telephone numbering databases for indications of the type of telephone being used e.g. landline, wireless mobile, satellite, etc.), information that may provide an understanding of the location of the target.

(S) For electronic communications

Review NSA content repositories and Internet communications data repositories (which contain, among other things, Internet metadata) for previous Internet activity. This information may contain network layer (e.g. Internet Protocol addresses) or machine identifier (e.g. Media Access Control addresses) information, which NSA compares to information contained in NSA's communication network databases and commercially available Internet Protocol address registration information in order to determine the location of the target.

*I am guessing that "facility" means something like a telephone company or an email provider like Google.


It's not clear to me if this means that they're indiscriminately recording everyone's phone calls and storing everyone's emails.