We now know exactly what happened. NSA will have the tapes.

[grantcart]

15. The NSA practice of storing billions of calls has been well documented

That is what was the kerfuffle under Obama. They store and then wait for a warrant to listen.

https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/18681-nsa-whistleblower-binney-nsa-recording-80-of-u-s-phone-calls

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/03/18/291165247/report-nsa-can-record-store-phone-conversations-of-whole-countries

This was in 2011, their capacity would be much greater now as they continue to improve ways to shrink and store files:

"A senior manager for the program compares it to a time machine — one that can replay the voices from any call without requiring that a person be identified in advance for surveillance.

"The voice interception program, called MYSTIC, began in 2009. Its RETRO tool, short for 'retrospective retrieval,' and related projects reached full capacity against the first target nation in 2011. Planning documents two years later anticipated similar operations elsewhere.

"In the initial deployment, collection systems are recording 'every single' conversation nationwide, storing billions of them in a 30-day rolling buffer that clears the oldest calls as new ones arrive, according to a classified summary.

"The call buffer opens a door 'into the past,' the summary says, enabling users to 'retrieve audio of interest that was not tasked at the time of the original call.' Analysts listen to only a fraction of 1 percent of the calls, but the absolute numbers are high. Each month, they send millions of voice clippings, or "cuts," for processing and long-term storage."



https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/04/07/dea-bulk-telephone-surveillance-operation/70808616/


WASHINGTON — The U.S. government started keeping secret records of Americans' international telephone calls nearly a decade before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, harvesting billions of calls in a program that provided a blueprint for the far broader National Security Agency surveillance that followed.


It is estimated to cost some thing under 100 million a year to store at the level that is publicly disclosed. The NSA budget is over $ 50 billion so if it was as high as $ 1 billion for storage that would only be 2% of their annual budget costs and with improvement of both hardware and software could be significantly lower than that.


https://gizmodo.com/how-much-it-costs-the-nsa-to-store-an-entire-countrys-p-1578666785

Now, remember the NSA is reportedly doing this in five different countries around the world, bringing our total ballpark just for phone call recording into the tens of millions of dollars.